The Heart of War
by SamAP
Summary: The man I love died today. And there's something I have that's not his. How am I going to live with myself? Takes place before and after RoTF. OP/OC Bee/OC
1. Chapter 1

_It's finally here! What you all have been waiting for! The sequel! Yay... okay, so not as exciting as I thought, but hey. A story is a story. Please review and no flames! Also, if you want, you can review me some ideas you want to see (whether it be in this story or a one shot). I promise I'll give credit where it's due._

_**Alter Ego#3:** Sellout._

_**Me:** Let's not start this story off on a bad tone. _

_**Alter Ego#3:** Why not? It's a bad story anyway. Hey, people! Don't read this!_

_**Me:** Dude! WTFacebook? Readers, please don't listen to him. **I don't own anything except my OC's and imagination.**_

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><p>We met each other when I told her what happened to her brother. Mizuki was her name. She's awfully shy and always points her shoulders inwards. I was about a foot taller but she was a few years older (according to my Earth profile). Regardless, she was still beautiful with a thin body and full features. Her long, charcoal black hair always covered most of her face. It drooped down past her chest line. I was with Bee as we spoke to Riku's family and told them about what happened. Bee had just come from Sam's house. He told me that Sam was leaving for college and that he couldn't bring Bee with him. The only reason I didn't break down and cry right then and there whenever Riku's name was mentioned was because I already had an hour before we came. It was odd because it was very spontaneous. After about 30 minutes of crying, I had instantly snapped into a relatively happy person. I blamed it on unbalanced human hormones and made a mental note to get Ratchet to fix that.<p>

"Mrs. Satou, what your son did was one of the most selfless, heroic things anybody could do," Bee says to comfort the weeping mother when we arrived.

"The l-last thing we have from him... was a-a note... s-saying he'd come home soon," I had to hold her because she started a new wave of tears, "B-but, he never did!" She was the only one crying. The father was sitting next to her, comforting her as I was. While Mizuki was balled up in a chair with her face in her arms. Bee had just finished calming her down from a crying fit. Seeing the pain these people had, it made me tear up a little.

"I-I know," my voice cracked a little, "I've personally befriended your son and believe me when I tell you, I did all I could to get him out of harms way. Unfortunately, fate was not in his favor," I choke a little.

"Please, Miss Marx. Tell us, how did our son manage to get himself in such a predicament," Mr. Satou quivered as he asked.

"He fell in love," I blurt out, not thinking of what I was saying. Bee kicked my foot and I snap up, shaking my head. "I mean, I found him, randomly. He told me that he needed a chance to help you out. He spoke of financial crisis, as well as health problems."

"He didn't need to do that," Mizuki mumbles out past her arms, "It's all my fault. I've worried him about our parents health and how we might end up living on the streets one day. I should have kept my mouth shut! I'm such an idiot!" she starts hitting herself, "I'm a mistake! If I was never born, they'd be happier!" Bee gently pulls her arms down and rubs her back as she sobs quietly against his chest.

"Don't blame yourselves. If it's anyones fault, it's the Decepti-I mean terrorists," Bee looks at me angrily again. I could tell what he was thinking,_ 'Get it together Nova!' _

"Please, go on. I must know what my son was thinking," Mr. Satou says weakly.

"Of course. He followed me to America where there was a terrible accident in Mission City. An extreme bombing. The government was desperate for any kind of help. Riku wanted to join. I tried to talk him out of it but he said that his family would be able to reap bountiful rewards," it didn't feel right lying to his family like that, but it needed to be done, "Unfortunately, he was in the direct line of a bomb. He was repelled backwards violently, as were my brother and I. I stayed with Riku until his last breath. He told me to tell you to not worry about him because he is in a better place and he died happily." The sobs started to stifle.

"That was my Riku, always the optimist," Mrs. Satou said with a feeble smile.

"That, he was," I say, grabbing her hand in comfort. "It was a great honor, being able to meet him. I would often ask how he was always so calm, he would always tell me it's because I was with him," _gah! I slipped up again! _"I mean, it was because he knew he had something to look forward to when it was all over." Mrs. Satou hugged her husband with a small sniffle.

"I just wish I could see him, one last time," she muffled into Mr. Satou's shoulder.

"We all do. On the bright side, I'm glad to say that his death was not in vain. He was very critical to the entire operation. He will be remembered greatly," a small smile appeared on my face, "And that's not all. A few of us wanted to make a care package for you guys, so you wouldn't be empty handed through all this craziness," I say with a relatively cheery tone.

I grab a box from behind me and hand it to them. "Inside is a deluxe first-aid kit and a life-time health insurance coverage. An emergency supply of food for when there is a natural disaster. It never spoils and it can feed all three of you for at least four months, granted you divide it correctly. There are few emergency supplies like a flashlight, a button that connects you to authorities immediately, and such and such," I run my hands through the contents, giving them a quick view at it all, "And last but not least, a check for more than 78 million yen," I see the families eyes widen as they take in all that I'm giving. "None of this is government provided. It has been given by the friends Riku had made," this wasn't a lie. The Autobots and a few military men chipped in, but most of it was given by an old woman who Riku had met while in America. She had no family so when she died, she left it to the only person she really became friends with. Riku. In reality, she gave more than half what we offered to the Satou's.

It had been about four hours that we were there. I hadn't even noticed until we got outside and the sun was hanging on the horizon. I gave them a hug goodbye and spotted the yellow Camaro waiting for Bee and I. We were just about to exit the driveway when something stops us.

"Wait!" I heard a soft voice scream. We turn around and see Mizuki running up to us, "I want to come with you. Please!" she begged with her eyes.

"Um, I'm sorry. I really don't know what to say. We don't recruit people," I stumble out. I can see her eyes tearing a little.

"You must let me! Riku has meant so much to me, to all of us. I want to follow in his footsteps. I know it sounds odd, since I am the older sibling, but I want to do it. Out of respect and love for my brother," she was practically leaning on Bee's door, begging. I look at him and check to see if it was okay. He gave me a shrug, and nodded his head.

"We can bring her to the base, but we can't do anything else," he says crackily. I give a wide smile and a small side-hug.

"You heard the man, you can come. Of course, your parents have to be aware of the situation. It's a big commitment. You need to move to America, your family and friends will be far away, and your life will be at risk," she nods quietly with a small smile of hope. I step out of the car and into their home one more time to let Mizuki get an okay from her parents and pack her bags. I don't know how her parents do it. They let two of their only children go out into the world so easily. I noticed I was in the presence of a very ambitious family. They say their goodbye's while I give her parents a phone and a schedule.

"This phone can only connect to Mizuki, and you will need to follow this schedule strictly if you wish to call her," I say tearing up. For whatever reason, I don't know. Then, I feel compelled to hug both of them and say goodbye. Yup, definitely hormones. I must've been eating too much human food.

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><p>We arrive at the new base, NEST (Network Elements, Supporters and Transformers), at about evening time the day after. I watch as Mizuki's eyes widen in awe. It was a huge place. We entered the front gate's and identified ourselves. This was standard protocol, in case an outsider was entering the premises. The Autobots would be asked to use their holoforms before the person stepped inside. I could faintly hear the clanking of shifting metal from where we were.<p>

"Bee," I whispered to his ear, "Give her a tour around the civilian approved areas first before bringing her to Optimus' office. I have some business to take care of first." He gave me a nod as he stepped forward and offered Mizuki an arm, showing her around. I quickly clicked away in some painful heels. _That's weird, my heels never bothered me before. Now they feel like they're a size too small. _I gave up trying to walk with them so I took them off and ran barefoot to Optimus' office. I gave three knocks before I heard him speak up.

"Who is it?" he said with a calm voice muffled by the door. I needed to play it up a little because I had a big favor to ask and I knew it would need to take some convincing for him to say yes.

"It's your teacher, here to tell you that you've been a _naughty_ student," I say using my 'special' power that only women have.

"Wow, big 'bot. Sounds your in for a hell of a night," Lennox chuckles from inside the room. _Slaggit'! I didn't know he was in there too! Keep calm, just roll with it._

"You brought a friend with you? Do you need me to give him a grade too?" I say saucily. I hear a quiet argument before the door unlocks and a certain Will Lennox is shoved out.

"Whatever you want, he's going to say yes for sure," he whispers to me as he leaves. Will is one of the only people who can see past my 'seduction card.' He is also one of the only people I don't use it on. He's got a wife and kid at home who I've met before, and I don't really like ending relationships.

"He-llo," Optimus says, giving me a quick once over while leaning on the door frame. I had unbuttoned my shirt far down enough so that the top of my bra was poking out and I hiked up my pencil skirt a little as well beforehand. I draped my hands around his neck, slowly backing him up against his desk. I quickly nibble his bottom lip before I start activating my plan.

"You know, I've been thinking," I whisper on his lips, "we might want an extra supporter or two. You know, so they can handle our tedious paperwork and-maybe- we could have some extra time to ourselves." I start tracing a finger slowly down his chest and stop at his belt. I tug it a little. As I did, I felt him quiver.

"Or we could start doing some actual work instead of sneaking out so we could be done earlier," he says as he lifts me up and sits me on his desk, moving his hands up and down my ribs.

"You're kidding right," I push him off of me a little and look at him with a disapproving frown.

"You know, your idea is starting to sound pretty good," he says quickly, pulling me back into a kiss.

"Really? You think?" I murmur out, waiting for the magic words.

"Yes, I do," that's all it took for me to sit up completely straight and hug him briskly by the neck.

"Cool, okay! I just needed to know! Thanks babe," I say as I pull my skirt back to it's regular length and button up my shirt. I hop to the door, pulling my infuriating heels back on. "See you in a few minutes!" I yell as I leave. I'm pretty sure he just sat there, staring at the door with confusion on his face. I limped around until I manage to find Bee and Mizuki at the rec. room. "Bee! Bee!" I whisper loudly. He gives me a shocked glare. I guess I kind of looked like a mad-man, shouting and limping around. I finally reach him and put all my weight on him, "It's all set, we can take her up now," I whisper from behind his back.

"Hey, Mizuki. I think you've had enough of the tour. It's time for you to apply for the spot. But don't get your hopes up too high, this is a special branch in the military. Only certain people can get it," he says, leading her towards Prime's office. When we reach it, I give her a confident look. She returns my look and takes a deep breath before heading inside. Bee follows after her while I hide behind him. "Optimus, we got ourselves a new girl. She wants to join us." Optimus is now behind his desk, nose deep in paperwork. When he looked up, he eyed her a little and was about to deny it. I guess he completely forgot about the little scenario that took place earlier. I saw this coming, so I silently stepped out from behind Bee and mouthed 'Plleeaaassseee' while dragging a finger down the middle of my entire body. Optimus stirred around a little and had to clear his throat before being able to speak.

"We do need more help around here," he thinks out-loud, "Get an okay from Lennox and take her to Ratchet. Get her checked and up to speed, run her through the standard protocols. She can start as soon as she can take in the... vastness... of our operation," he said professionally. I gave him a wink and a silent 'thank you'.

"Thank you Mr. Prime," Mizuki says, bowing.

"Mizuki, in America we don't usually bow," Bee says with a soft chuckle. I saw him give her a look that I recognize. _He's starting to fall for her!_

We started to file out but I heard Optimus speak up again. "Oh, Miss Marx. I'm need to have a... private... word with you. I need your 'opinion' on something," I smirked as I turned around. "Please, close the door." I'm pretty sure I heard Bee shudder a little as I shut the door. He walks up to me and pins me against the wall next to the door. "That wasn't fair," he says with a smile.

"What? I have no clue what you're talking about," I say innocently. I can feel him lifting the back of my shirt up just a bit.

"Should I refresh your memory?" I nod slowly, "Well, you were kissing me like this," he nibbles my bottom lip softly, "and then the next thing I knew, you left outside that door."

"Okay, it's starting to come back to me," I bite my bottom lip as I look up at him. His hand coming up to my bra strap.

"So why exactly did you want her to join us?" he says in a quiet voice.

"I think the question you should be asking is 'Can you lock the door? Someone unwanted might come in,'" I say, moving my hand to push the lock in. That's when he connected our lips. He dragged me to his couch and I felt a tongue wiggle in. He finally manage to unhook my bra with his hand.

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><p>I eventually met up with them at Ratchet's office. The tight bun my hair was in earlier turned into a sloppy one and my shirt was slightly misbuttoned. Also, I'm pretty sure my lipstick was slightly smeared. I had abandoned my shoes altogether. I really didn't want to deal with that right now. Bee takes one look at me and shakes his head in disapprovement.<p>

"Hey, when you get a girlfriend, I'll shake my head at you and you see how it feels," I whisper violently. I try to cross to Ratchet but I accidently trip on Bee's foot and landed on my forearms. He helped me up but my head wasn't feeling well. Almost like a random wave of nausea hit me. Ratchet quickly wrapped up what he was doing and gave her a schedule. He stopped talking immediately when he saw me leaning heavily on Bee. Apparently, I didn't look normal at all.

"Nova! Are you okay?" he asks as he runs up to me. He tries to hold me by my arms but I just collapse entirely in his. "Hey, are you feeling well? You're unnaturally pale!" he turns to Bee and Mizuki, "Just get her to Lennox and let him give her the run down. Tell him I have a patient to tend to." They nod and quickly step out of his office. When the coast is clear, he opens a door that's in the back of the room. It led to the med-bay. He carried me to one of the beds they use for the humans.

"Ratch, my head is pounding like crazy," I say weakly. He puts a hand on my forehead and gives me a quick scan, then gasps sharply. He stumbles backwards a little, knocking over a few things and I start to panic, "What? What's wrong with me?" I ask, trying to get up. But I'm just too weak.

"Nothing, nothing. I was just... startled... is all," he picks up the things that fell, "Tell me, have you been a bit moody lately?" he asks, now turning around to grab a data pad, scribbling words on it.

"Yeah, I have. I thought it was just my human body messing with my Autobot body. I was going to ask you about it today," I say, recalling the memory of making that mental note.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh. Have you been experiencing any back pain, stomach cramps, swollen feet?" I'm in total shock of how spot on he is with his questions.

"Um, yeah. Exactly that, why?" I try to get a focus on his optics, but it just makes my head ache miserably. He takes a deep sigh and folds his hands together, starring at me for a while.

"Nova, I don't exactly know how else to say this, but... you're pregnant," he says with his eyebrows furrowed. I glare at him and almost offline.

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><p><em> OMG! What do you think? Huh? Huh? Kinda makes you want to review some more. I know you want to. Tell me whatcha think!<em>

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	2. Chapter 2

_It's a new chappeh! To those of you who read the first chapter (I'm hoping that would be all of you) and thought the pregnancy was a good thing, wait 'til you read this chapter._

_**Alter Ego#3:** Way to spoil it for your fans, if you had any._

_**Me:** I didn't spoil it! I just gave them a tip._

_**Alter Ego:** Stop arguing! It's so annoying! Gah!_

_**Me:** Well sorry. I'm just trying to tell people that **I don't own anything**. It's his fault that he's being a meanie!_

_**Alter Ego:** Stop whining!_

_**Me:** Meep!_

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><p>"You're funny Ratchet. But seriously, tell me <em>what<em> the frag is going on with me," I manage to force myself up and face him with the look of death on my face.

"You are 7 months and 2 weeks pregnant," he enunciates slowly. I bring him in close to my face by his collar.

"What? You better not be fragging kidding because I swear if you are-" he cuts me off, more calm than usual.

"I'm not kidding, it's a healthy baby girl," he says with a smile. A pang of truth hits me, making me lie back down and think about what just happened.

"But-but I don't even have a baby bump, I haven't even gained any weight. I'm only experiencing side effects now," I say, covering my eyes.

"It's rare for this thing to happen, but it's not uncommon. Slag, there's even a t.v. show about things like this. You don't need worry, you're both fine," he says rubbing my arm. I try to look on the bright side when a funny thought hit me.

"Wait a minute. You said a healthy _baby girl,_" I recite slowly, trying to piece things together, "You're supposed to say a healthy _femme hatchling_," I've heard doctors deliver that exact phrase to everyone who's had a hatchling, "And how can I be pregnant when Optimus and I haven't even bonded yet? Slaggit, he hasn't even proposed to me yet!" I say getting back up and emphasizing everything I say with my hands. _Now_ his face turns sour.

"Nova, I want you to calm the frag down first. I'm not going to tell you _anything_ until you do," he says firmly. I nod, releasing the tension from my body, and lay back down, showing him that I can be calm. I can be a good girl. "Okay, the first thing you need to know is it's a human baby," I twitch a little and tighten my fist but I know I'll get an explanation later, "Second, you're going to have to deliver it in your human form, and I must ask you not to shift into your robot form until you do," I nod in agreement, "Lastly...," he takes his sweet time before talking again, "it's not Optimus'. It's Riku's," he said this last part quickly and shielded himself with his data pad. That was a smart move, because in the next second, I tackle him to the ground, shouting at his face.

"HOW THE **FRAG** DID THAT FRAGGIN'** HAPPEN?** YOU DEMENTED GLITCH,** YOU** DID SOMETHING WRONG! GET YOUR OPTICS FIXED! SLAGGIT' IF THIS IS A JOKE, IT **AIN'T** FUNNY!" I shake him violently until Ironhide spots us and runs inside.

"Nova stop! You're hurting yourself! And ME!" Ratchet yells as I manage to tear some of his clothing. Ironhide picks me up from the waist, ripping me away from Ratchet. I'm still trying to claw at him but Ironhide pulled me too far.

"Whoa whoa whoa, calm down! I'm supposed to be the trigger-happy one, remember? No need to kill our only doctor," he says calmly. His attention turns quickly to man trying to stumble away in fear, "Ratchet, what the frag did you do to piss her off like this?" he said calmly as I started to slow down. I gave Ratchet a look that said _'Tell him and die.'_

"I just... accidently gave her the wrong sets of data," he manages to falter out. My nausea kicked in again and I could've thrown up right then and there.

"Um, sure. Okay. Well, do you want me to put her down?" he said, noticing that I was drooping out of his grasp already. Ratchet thinks about this question for a while. Like, _really_ thinking. I can tell he's playing out different scenarios in his head.

"Yeah, it's okay. I can handle it from here," Ratchet finally says as he motions for Ironhide to put me back on the bed/table thing. He waits for him to leave before turning to me. I look up from my palms to him with misty optics. He sighs, holding out his hands in a hesitant hug and I wrap my arms around his neck and start crying heavily into his white lab coat.

"How does that even happen?" I cry out from his shoulder, but it comes out muffled from his coat.

"Well the only explanation I have is pretty specific. You'd have to be completely defenseless, as you are now, and you'd have to be surrounded by a high amount of energon. Riku would have to be touching a pretty big source and would have to be considerably close to you for this to happen," he says, petting my hair. I start to recall the first night we spent together and the truth slaps me in the face. I get up from Ratchet's shoulder and stare him deep in the optics before telling him what happened.

"We were in a wheat field and I had just finished collecting a bunch of energon. There was a considerable amount of it. He must've been laying down on an underground pile while I was crying-ahem- I mean resting on his arm," I say, now trying to avoid his optics.

"Well there you go. That's the entire explanation," he says putting his hands on my shoulders.

"Wait, so it's possible for humans to mate with Autobots?" I exclaim with widen optics.

"No, no, no. That's still not possible. At least not for a holoform or a robotic form. You, on the other hand, are neither of those. Since your techno-organic, well... let's just say it opens up options," he says casually as he turns back to scribble some more notes on the data pad. "Shouldn't you know that? I mean, you invented it," he adds in but I don't have the strength to rebuttal.

"Oh Primus," I groan as I lay back down, "How am I going to tell Optimus?" Just then, Optimus barges in, "Well, speaking of the devil," I mumble soft enough for only Ratchet to hear as I sit up to look at him.

"Hey Nova, one of the Autobots that answered our call just crash landed behind the hangar. Can you take care of it? I have to run Mizuki through some things first," he says simply. _How I wish I was that innocent right now._

"Yeah, of course," I say, trying to hide the fact that I've been crying heavily for the past half hour or so. He leaves and Ratchet turns to me.

"Do you feel well enough to go?" he asks, scanning me again.

"I'm good Ratch." I hopped off the table, feeling the heaviness of my muscles. "Sorry for almost killing you," I say with melancholy as I close the door behind me.

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><p>I finally arrive to where the crash just happened and what I see almost makes me laugh. <em>Almost.<em> I'm guessing whoever had arrived already chose an alt. form because the next thing I see is a dark red Lamborghini backing up from an almost hysterical Mizuki. I spotted her on the hard, gravel covered ground, scooting backwards into Bee's arms.

"Hey, hey. Mizuki. Darling... calm down, it's okay," I say running up to her and rubbing her back. I turn my head up to Bee, "I thought you told her already!" I violently whisper.

"I was going to, but this slaggin pipe-sucker decided to land right in front of her," he says, matching my tone. He looks at me critically, "Nova... it's Sideswipe." My optics widen instantly and my pulse accelerated frantically. Horrible, horrible memories cloud my processor at the mentioning of that name.

"Holy Primus! Fragging hide me!" I say, stumbling behind Mizuki. It's too late. Sideswipes holoform appeared and he caught a good look at me. In the next second, I see a blur of charcoal red hair dash towards me. He picked me up, pinned me against the wall, and shoved his tongue down my throat.

I was practically choking for air. A few more seconds of writhing under his body weight would've resulted in me kneeing his balls, but Bee beat me to it. He tackled Sideswipe to the ground and caught the attention of Ratchet, Ironhide, Epps, and Lennox. The second Sides let go of me, I unhesitatingly turned and forcefully vomited into a nearby trash can. I look up to Ratchet who ran up to me and is scanning me again.

"Isn't someone going to help him?" I say, pointing a thumb over to Bee who's beating the energon out of Sideswipe.

"To be honest, Ironhide and I are fine with just watching," he says nonchalantly.

"You guys are idiots," I say as I wipe my mouth and straighten up.

"Don't get in the middle of that! You could damage your ba- I mean yourself!" he yells after me. I glare at him a little for almost giving up the secret before I try to talk Bee down.

"Bee? Honeybee? Hey... HEY!" He wasn't listening, "Can you do me a favor and try _not_ to kill him, please! We kinda need him alive!" Nope, still not listening. I saw Bee draw holoform blood. I didn't even know that was possible. "BUMBLEBEE! Fragging stop!" _That's it. That's the last straw_, "Bee, I'm pregnant!" That got everyone's attention. _Thank Primus, Optimus wasn't here to hear that._ They both looked at me in shock. Bee dropped Sideswipe and ran to me.

"What? Since when? I'm pretty sure you and Optimus didn't- I mean, I don't think," I stopped him for a second.

"Ew. Don't talk to me about that. Anyways, I'll explain later," I whisper, then I turn around to face the others. "For the sake of all of your sanity's, and mine, you will _not _tell anyone or anything what you have just heard." They all look at me in disbelief, "Please?" They start murmuring in agreement. "Thank you," I sigh out. I turn around to a horrified Sideswipe.

"Oh Primus, I just made out with Optimus' pregnant spark-mate," he looks like he's on the verge of crying. He's lucky that Bee beat up his holoform and not his alt. form because the face that I'm seeing just looks like a five-year-old's finger painting.

"Correction, you just _raped _Optimus' pregnant _girlfriend_," I say matter-of-factly, "Also, the proper thing you should have done was giving me a warm welcome hug instead of forcing you tongue down my throat. What in the 'verse possessed you to do that anyway?"

"'Are you okay Sideswipe? Is there anything I can do for you? Can you feel your face?' Is what you _should've_ said!" he barks at me before cooling down and answering my question. "Anyway, I always thought we had a thing going on. You know, you'd flirt with Optimus so you can get special treatment while we go behind his back and have fun." I just stare at him shocked. Bee was shocked to.

"Wow. Just whoa. Don't ever say that again. That has never happened. Never. And it never will. You know, some days I wished I never saved your aft from the day I saw Bee beat you up like this," I say poking a finger on his chest. _That explains why he always used to stalk me on Cybertron._

"Sure, whatever you say," he says slowly as he checks me out. He stops for a minute and thinks about something, "Wait, hold on. You said 'pregnant' and 'girlfriend' in the same sentence," his optics widen a bit, "That's not Optimus' hatchling, is it?" Bee gives me the same look. I know they both want answers. I tell them what Ratchet told me, and they listen intently. "Just so we're clear, I didn't cheat. It was an accident. Okay? Now forget you ever knew about this."

"How can I forget that my sister has a human child inside of her while dating a mech?" Bee says, looking disgusted.

"Hey, don't you dare abandon your sister in this time of need. Can't you see that she's obviously confused," Sideswipe interrupts.

"Wow Sides, I never would have known that of all people, you'd see my situation so clearly," I say, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Someone needs a hug," he pulls me into an awkward hug.

"Um, Sidesy? Yeah, this doesn't forgive you for what you did earlier, so you can stop trying," I say, pushing him away slightly.

"It was worth a shot," he says, dropping his caring tone. "So how are you gonna tell the boss 'Bot?" he asks.

"I don't know," I sigh out. I guess my mood swing kicked at this point because I started full-on wailing onto Bee's chest. _Huh, how did _that_ happen?_

"It's a pregnant thing," he tells Sideswipe as he pats my back.

"Was the throwing up part a pregnant thing too?" Sides asks innocently.

"No, you're just really disgusting," Bee says as he leads me inside.

"Excuse me but I am amazing! Femmes love me," his voice cracked as he yelled after us. Bee dragged me to Ratchet's and sat me down on a soft couch to cry by myself.

"Hey, hey. Calm down, calm down," he soothed as I rolled up into a ball, "Want me to get Ratchet? He can help you, hopefully." I nodded as he left my side and looked for the doc. He came back with him a few minutes later. "Nova, I have to go. There are a few other 'bots that made a touchdown and I have to debrief them," he said, obviously very concerned.

"I can take it from here," I heard Ratchet say. I still hadn't moved from the fetal position I was in, so I couldn't see anything. I did hear Bee click the door shut as he left. "I'm afraid I won't be good company, I have work that needs to be done," he says calmly. I didn't respond so he sighs, thinking of something that could keep my mind off things. "If you feel up to it, you can place a few booby-traps around the medical area so Sides won't screw around with anything." I give a soft chuckle as I slowly sit up and nod. _What do you know, it worked._ I start tinkering around his office for a while when I heard an alarm go off.

_Threat detected. Threat detected. Level 5 threat and scaling. All immediate soldiers report to hangar 8. _A voice said. Ratchet looked at me, telling me to stay here as he left to attend to the problem. A few minutes later, Mizuki arrives inside the office looking calmer than before.

"Miss Marx, the doctor told me to go here and keep you company," she spoke in Japanese.

"Please, call me Nova," I say in English, "If you're going to join us, you will need to learn English," she gives me a small nod. I get on the couch and pat the seat next to me. I watch her as she slowly creeps towards it. "Tell me, what's going on out there?"

"All I know is that, there is a problem going on over in China. Shanghai to be exact," she says in almost fluent English. She looks up at me from her gaze at the floor, "Miss-I mean, Nova. I know you don't want me to talk about this, but since it's only us, is it true? Do you really have my brothers child?" I don't know who told her that it belonged to her brother, or whether she's okay with the idea or if she completely hates it, but I had no other choice but to tell her the truth.

"Yes, I do," she starts tearing up a little, "Oh no, your brother and I never -no, no. I'm not that kind of person. What happened is very complicated to explain, in fact, only our medical officer knows what happened exactly. But don't worry, we didn't -you know," I stumble out. She smiles a little and hugs me.

"I am not mad. I am happy. This means that Riku's legacy lives on. It also means that my parents have a grandchild, and I have a... nephew? Niece?" she asks as she goes back to her position.

"A niece. She is going to come out soon. In a few weeks time," I smile back at her. "So, since we're on the topic of relationships, do you have someone special in your life?" she shakes her head bashfully. "That can't be true. You're a beautiful woman."

"I guess guys just don't notice me. I don't know if you know this but, I'm a little shy," she says looking up at me.

"What? No! Shy? You?" I lie convincingly, "I would call you, reserved. But shy? Never." She gives me a smile, "You know, if you want people to notice you more, you have to stop hunching over like that..." I pop her shoulders back. "And, get your hair out of your face..." I take of my ponytail and gently tie it on her. "Perfect. Maybe later, if you don't mind, we can go to the mall. We'll get you a short haircut and some new clothes." She looks at me skeptically. "It will be fun, I promise."

"Okay, I'll go," she says with her smile broadening.

"But it has to wait for tomorrow, you still need to get used to this place and I'm pretty sure you don't even know where your quarters are." She gives me a polite nod and I offer to take her there. I show her a hallway that's full of hallways protruding out of it. Almost like a leaf stem. In_ those_ hallways are the doors to the resting quarters.

"Here you go," I say as we reach her door. "You are currently rooming with someone. I think her name is Mariah. If you guys need anything, I'm two halls down to the left, where the other holoforms sleep. My name is on the door." I watch as she steps in and is greeted by her new room mate. I quietly slip out to the hallway and into my room. Although it's not allowed, Optimus usually stays with me. Rooms are strictly non-coed, but we don't care. It feels different without him laying beside me. It's so... empty. But I'm glad he's not there. I'm afraid that he might find out about the baby thing.

"Hey," I heard someone call from behind the door, "I know you're awake Nova. Let me in, we need to talk," the voice sounds irritated but relaxed at the same time.

"Who is it?" I ask lazily.

"You know damn well who it is, now let us in," another voice called. I force myself up and slump towards the door.

"People usually like it when you ask _politely_ to enter a persons room," I cross my arms and look at two familiar faces. Jazz and Mikaela.

"Baby, we heard something was up-," Jazz started, but Mikaela finished up his sentence.

"-And since we're one of your best friends, we deserve to know." She looked impatient, especially with her hands on her hips.

"Fine, in," I grouch out, pointing a thumb to my room. We all sit on the bed before I look at them with dejected optics. I try to choose my words carefully but give up because I know that Mikaela's going to end up screeching like a dying animal and Jazz is just going hit her with something. "Before I tell you, Jazz needs to hold you down and cover your mouth," I tell Mikaela straight up. She looks at me like I'm crazy, and I'm starting to believe I am, "Look, this is some pretty big news and I really need you to trust me." She finally nods. Jazz scoots over and wraps an arm around her stomach and clamps a hand down on her mouth.

"Hurry up and tell us before someone racist gets in here," Jazz jokes.

"Okay, okay." I take a deep breath, "Guys... I'm pregnant." As if on cue, Mikaela starts squealing and tries to attack me with a hug. I flinch slightly but Jazz holds her down.

"Congrats, girl. Big O's finally gonna be a daddy," he says, loosening his grip on Mikaela.

"Aww! How cute! Is it a boy or girl?" she says considerably loud.

"Shhh! I wasn't done!" I whisper crossly. They simmer down and look at me wide-eyed, "Don't tell anybody, but... It's Riku's child." This time they just stared at me. I didn't let them say anything, I just went straight to the explanation.

"N-Nova... I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now," Mikaela says collectedly as she brings me into a hug and strokes my hair.

"I feel like scrap," I begin to sob. "The worst part is that I'm delivering in a few weeks and Optimus doesn't even know. I just... don't know how to tell him."

"Hey, if I know the big guy, and I do, I know for sure he'll be okay with it. I mean, it was an accident. Random, yes; infuriating, no," Jazz says as he rubs my back.

"Thanks guys," I sniffled. "I really should've told you earlier."

"Damn straight," Jazz mumbles, but Mikaela jams her elbow into his gut.

"Hey, why don't we take your mind off of this. What do you say? I'll take you out tomorrow, my treat," she offers after she gave Jazz a menacing death glare.

"Actually, Mizuki and I _were_ going to go shopping. I think Bee likes her and I wanted to give her a complete makeover." I say with a feeble attempt of giddiness. "But you know, I think it'd be more fun if you came with."

"Perfect!" she says, clapping her hands together. "Wanna come Jazz? We need someone to hold our purses," she taunts. He just gives her a sarcastic look.

"I think we've had enough of torturing Jazz with snooty comments for today," he says as he gets up and pulls Mikaela with him. "You need some sleep. Night, Novs."

"Goodnight guys," I call after them as they gently close the door. Finally, some quiet. I just hope I can get some sleep.

* * *

><p><em> Whoa! Crazy, right? I hope Optimus can handle this. Please review if you're not too busy to share the love. Please. It's right there. You don't need to make it long, you could just review Hi if you want.<em>

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	3. Chapter 3

_More candy for your brains to eat! Here you go. I don't really have a witty banter today so-_

_**Optimus:** Yes you do._

_**Me:** Holy mother-!_

_**Optimus:** Whoa, whoa. Calm down. I just came here to say the disclaimer._

_**Me:** O-okay.** *drools from incredible buff-ness***_

**_Optimus: She doesn't own anything except her OC's and imagination._**

* * *

><p>I wake up with a horrible headache. It's 8:30 and Optimus still isn't back yet. Whatever happened must have taken a while to clean up. I hear a knock on my door, it's one of the supporters.<p>

"It's open!" I yell from my bed, my arms covering my eyes.

"Good morning Miss Marx, Major Lennox aked me to deliver you a message. He said he the squad would arrive in a few hours," he said emotionlessly.

"That's my message?" I say, bringing my head up a little and leaning on my forearms. I have to squint a little because my optics haven't completely adjust to the lighting yet.

"Hm? Oh no. It's not." He gives a breathy chuckle, "No, Lennox has asked you to meet the new liaison. He also said to be nice and try not to screw it up." I could tell he was quoting him directly.

"Excuse me, he said _what_?" I ask menacingly as I sit up more.

"Oh, forgive me. He said, 'Be nice and try not to screw it up, _please_,'" he corrects quickly.

"Good." I drop myself back on the bed. "Is the new liaison here yet?" I ask groggily.

"He's arriving in an hour," he says professionally.

"All right, I'll meet him by my office," I say, shooing the guy away. I force myself up and drag myself to the women's bathroom/locker room. I do my usual routine... actually, scratch that. I _try_ to do my usual routine. But I managed to throw up twice, pee excessively, and forget every now and then exactly what I was doing. _Primus,_ _I figure out I'm pregnant for one day and already I'm flipping through side effects like crazy. _By the time I'm done, I feel like I need to bite someone's head off. I know what my mood is for right now. Cranky.

"Good morning Nova," someone from the filing department says.

"Whatever," I mumble with a sour face.

"Hey Nova, how's it crackin'?" a man asks as I pass by him.

"You're not important enough to know," I bite back. _So this is what being Sunstreaker feels like. _Oh the new liaison is in for a heck of a treat. This goes on until I reach my office. There's a huge mirror behind my desk, so the first thing I see is my reflection, with a small bump. "Oh, no." I run up to the mirror and check it out. "Okay, good. It's barely noticeable," I say as I run my hand around my stomach. This is the first time I really think about this baby. "So your my new daughter, huh? You know you have wonderful timing, just like your mommy," I say sarcastically. "How am I going to tell Optimus?" I groan out desperately. I hear a knock on the door but whoever's there doesn't bother to wait for me to invite him in.

"I've been waiting for ten minutes out there! The least you can do is-!" He stops mid-sentence and gives me a once over. He looks old and has a noticeable comb-over, "Well he-llo," he says in a smoother tone, "I'm your new liaison. Call me Galloway," he makes a purring noise while I'm just standing there, frozen with shock. _Great, another Simmons._

"Uh-um, uh," I stutter out first. He comes up to me and puts a finger to my lips. To which I respond by pulling my head back as far as my neck will allow.

"Shh. Don't talk, I know I have that certain... effect... on gorgeous women like yourself," he gazes into my optics. It takes all the power I have to not throw up again. _Be nice Nova, do it for Lennox. _I slowly push his finger away with a pinky and give him a disgusted look.

"Galloway? Is it? Listen here, and listen good. _I_ am second in command. _You_ are a temporary liaison and can be replaced at my will. Let's not throw away your chances here," I circle around him, trying very hard to strike some fear into him, "If you are to speak, you are to speak respectfully. You will answer to me and my superiors unless spoken otherwise," I say relatively calm. He doesn't wipe the goofy look off of his face but he does back down a little.

"I get it, you're a bit scared that I might hurt your feelings and you need a little time to think it over. That's fine with me," he says, putting up his hands in defeat. "I just need a little tour is all, sweet cheeks." I was straining a smile. He couldn't see it, but my grip on my desk intensified so much that it left a dent... on the metal.

"Of course, Inspector," I force myself to say. We were about to leave when Epps appeared at my door frame.

"I'm sorry to bother you two, but Nova is needed at the medical bay," he says looking a little worried.

"Oh thank Primus," I sigh out. "Um, I mean. Of course, I'll be there right away," I say a bit more professionally, trying to hide my happiness. "I'm sorry Inspector Galloway, our tour must be postponed-," I start, but then an idea hits me, "Actually, Sergeant Epps here can show you around, right Epps?" I turn to him and mouth 'please'. He looks from me to Galloway and back to me before sighing and agreeing. I hug him quickly and whisper a thank you as I dash out the door. He's going to hate me later but I don't care. I would do anything to get away from Galloway. I enter the med bay searching for Ratchet and find myself starring up at a 20 foot robot. "You needed me?"

"Yes, I did," he said, never lifting his optics from his data pad. "Get on the bed please," he pointed to the hospital bed nearest to him and transformed to his alt. form so he could pop his holoform out.

"You should stop saying things that sound creepy," I say and in return I get a hollow laugh. I followed him towards the bed and found myself being scanned. Goose bumps appear on my skin from the weird crawly feeling it gives off. "So how's our new mommy feeling?" he said with a sarcastic chuckle.

"I feel like someone took eight months worth of pregnancy and dumped it on me," I spat out and told him about my morning scenario.

"It's normal. It's not common, but it's normal," he said checking a few things on me.

"Hey, where are the others?" I ask him, finally realizing that I haven't seen anyone besides Epps all morning.

"Some are running the new Autobots through protocols, and the rest are with Optimus meeting the new liaison. They have a meeting with the general," he said calmly before letting me go.

"Something tells me I won't be able to tell Optimus what's going on before it's too late," I say while rolling my eyes.

"It's because you both have perfect timing," he said with more sarcasm.

"You are too funny Ratchey," I say while lightly punching his arm.

"I want you to come here every morning since you haven't gotten the chance for proper pre-natal care. Just wanna make sure no problems arise," he says, marking some things on his calender. It's probably my check-up times.

"Yes, doctor. I promise I'll be good," I yell behind me as I look for Optimus. I end up in Hangar 3 where I spot the twins. Not Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, Skids and Mudflaps. _How the Pit did I end up in here?_

"Yo Skids, you seein' what I'm seein'?" Mudflaps says, nudging his brother as he nods in my direction.

"I'm seein' one nice piece of aft," Skids says, them both staring at me as I walk up to them. "Eh yo lil mama, wanna hang out with the big boys?" Mudflap wolf whistles at me.

"You wanna stop now, or do you want to keep going until Optimus hears and rips your pipes off?" I say with a smile.

"Dude, dis one's got a dirty mouth, I know where I wants her to put it," Mudflap says, making sure I heard him.

"You two don't recognize me?" I ask innocently. I shift my arms into a fully loaded cannon and point it at their faces, "How about now?"

"WHOA, WHOA!" they both say as they back up behind each other.

"Nova, we di'nt recognize you, we swears it! Don't tell Boss 'Bot," Skids says, practically crying. I put my cannons away and cringe at the pain. _I forgot, Ratchet said no shifting. _"Wait, hold on. You and da big guy is goin' out right?" I nod at him with a raised eyebrow, "Well you best find him before Elita-1 does. You knows how she all still crazy 'bout him." Oh yeah, her. I almost forgot about her. She would always try something on Optimus while we were technically together. I can't blame her, she honestly didn't know about it. And I'm guessing she still doesn't

"Hey, thanks for the heads up. Where are they?" I ask.

"Thems at the Airstrip Hangar. Talkin to some dude named Galloway," Skids says behind me as I run... or at least jog, towards the hangar. I reach them to see Galloway looking pissed, as always. Optimus is in his robot form while they're all talking to someone on the computer. I hustle up the stairs and stand behind the camera. You can bet Galloway saw me and he tried to straighten himself out. I didn't really care for it, the only thing I did care for was that Elita-1 was on the complete opposite side of the room. I'm guessing she just arrived and probably hasn't had the chance to talk to Optimus yet. I heard Galloway talking about where Megatron's exact position was and where the All-Spark piece was located and how it was protected. I couldn't stand him anymore.

"Um, excuse me, if I may interrupt," I say politely.

"Who is speaking now, Major?" the general on the other side of the screen asks.

"This is Nova Marx," he says as he pulls me into view. "She is the Second Command of the Autobots and the NEST operation. Our Autobot-Human liaison, if you will." Galloway's eyes widen a little.

"I'm sorry to cut in general, but do you think it's really safe to be discussing this in an unprotected line? I mean, there have been six Decepticon attacks this year, perhaps speaking of this will start another one," I say, trying to plead with my voice for them to discuss this elsewhere.

"Please Miss Marx, this line is very secure. Top-notch even," the general gloats.

"Really?" I put a finger to the monitor, "Because as of right now, I've successfully hacked into this conversation. I am now free to download whatever files I wish from this computer, or yours." I pull my finger away and let them think about this. The general looks confused for a second but then manages to piece things together. He must've known about techno-organics and such.

"I'd like to say otherwise, but it's already too late to reschedule. Although, your reasoning will be kept in mind for future references. Thank you for your input," the general says. He then cues Galloway to continue whatever it was they were talking about. I turn to go down the stairs and Lennox pats my shoulder.

"It's okay, nothing too bad will happen," he whispers, trying to comfort me. I find my way down to Epps.

"So what exactly were they talking about?" I ask him. He stares at me like I'm crazy.

"You were just up there! You even spoke to the general! How do you not know what the heck it is they're talking about?" he whispers madly.

"Well _so_-rry if I didn't pay attention. I was just focussed more on the part where Comb-over up there was giving away top-secret info," I said, referring to Galloway. He snorted at the new nickname I had given the inspector.

"I gotta use that one day," he chuckles at me. "Well, anyway. They're talking about how the president wants to shut down N.E.S.T. because of all the money it's costing. Now, Galloway's saying something about wanting to know more about your guys' weaponry." He pointed up at the argument going on.

"You agreed to share all your intel except you advancements in weaponry," Galloway barks at Optimus.

"We've witnessed your human capacity for war. It would bring more harm than good," he calmly replies. I've always admired that trait he had; the one that kept him calm no matter what. I wonder if he's ever lashed out on anyone before. I'd hate to be whoever that 'Bot was.

"Who are you to judge what's best for us?" Galloway is starting to turn red with anger.

"With all due respect, we've been fighting side by side in the field for two years." I bump Epps' fist as Lennox said that, clearly defending our side.

"We've shed blood, sweat, and precious metal together," Epps adds in.

"Soldier, we pay you to shoot, not talk," Galloway says degradingly.

"Oh, no he didn't," I snap softly as I try to walk towards him with a balled up fist. I really wish I had put my gloves on today. Epps holds me back and Optimus tells us to cool it a little. Galloway starts scolding Optimus about the invitation he sent to the other Autobots. "Epps you better hold onto me tight or else you're going to witness a murder," I whisper behind me. I felt his arms move to hold me around the waist as many others have done before when I feel trigger-happy but he hesitates a little, remembering what he learned yesterday. I noticed it as well and I looked at him with misty optics and a smile. "I'll just stand behind you," I say with a soft chuckle. "What are they saying now?" I peek from behind his shoulder.

"They're saying that the Autobots are the reason that the Decepticons are still here." I dig my nails into his shoulders as I press my mouth against his back, holding in the urge to do something stupid. "Either that or the Fallen." I gasp a bit at the mentioning of that. _The Fallen? Where have I heard that before?_ "Now he's asking you guys to leave."

"He's an idiot. A creepy, horny, idiot," I mumble in his shirt.

"Horny?" I shrug off his question and listen to what Optimus had to say.

"...But before your president decides, please ask him this. What if we leave, and you're wrong?" I silently high-five Epps because, you have to admit, that question really makes you think. I'm pretty sure I even saw Lennox giving Optimus a thumbs up.

After a while, everyone disperses and does what they were supposed to do. I see Elita-1's holoform walking towards Optimus' office. _Oh, slag. I gotta get there first._ As of right now, I'm completely parallel to her. I start hiding and running so she won't see me. Try as I might, I can't seem to get a good lead. As if an answered prayer, Jazz steps in front of me.

"Jazz, just the person I need. Go over there and distract Elita-1. Just for 10 minutes. Don't ask questions." I dash off without him even saying a word. We're good enough friends for him to know that that kind of thing is normal... ish. Either way, he does as I ask without hesitation and I manage to slip into Optimus' office, undetected.

* * *

><p>"Hi? Do you need anything?" Optimus looks up from more papers. I could sense that he's tense. Tense enough that he hadn't noticed the fact that I was panting heavily from my sprint.<em> Here's my chance.<em>

"I just wanted to see if you needed a little break and it looks like you do," I make my way over to behind his desk and slip my arms from his shoulder to his chest. I give him a small peck on the cheek before rubbing his shoulders. "What are you doing to yourself? You're so tense," I say, hitting all the right spots. I can hear him moaning silently in pleasure. "You know, you need to forget about the world a little bit," I say softly as I turn him slightly from his swivel chair and climb into his lap. I let my optics dance around his features, "You want me to help you?"

"More than anything in the world," he says in a low voice. I wrap my hands around the back of his neck and pull him in, while playing with the small tufts the hair there. We've been locking lips for a while now but I had to keep him going until the right moment. _Where the Pit is she? _I could feel both of our heart rates picking up and just as I was about to give up and let go, the door swings wide open.

"Hey Optimus! Did you mi-?" We both stop to see a shocked Elita-1. I get up from my spot slowly and walk up towards her, ready to give her a hug.

"Hi Elita! Long time no s-" she stopped me with a slap to my face. I admit, I deserved that. _Probably should have taken a different route to potentially breaking her spark_. Regardless, her actions made Optimus stand up right away. He came over to me and gave me a protected hug as I rubbed the spot on my cheek where she hit me.

"What was that about?" he said, keeping his temper down.

"I wait for nearly two vorns to finally see you again and I find you kissing a pipe-sucking glitch!" she yells loudly.

"How dare you call her that? If anything, you're the glitch. She has been my mate for the past three years," he says, still calm as ever.

"What? _We_ were an item for the past three years! Us! Not her!" she said, on the verge of crying. She was pretty, an inch or two shorter than I was, but she still had some meat on her bones. Her hair was a bright neon pink and it was all poofy and curly.

"I've barely _talked_ to you in the past three years! The topic of relationships never even has encountered in any of our conversations!" now Optimus started losing his cool a little, I could feel his chest heat up.

"Oh yeah? What about the one time you kissed me, huh?" she said with a smug grin as she crossed her arms. A silence engulfed the room.

"I'm sorry, you two did what," I say glaring at Optimus.

"That's never happened. You can even check my memory bank," he says, calm again. I can trust him. I know he's not lying. Optimus is a horrible liar.

"Of course it did," she says, looking as if she had won, "Exactly two years, five months, and two days ago, we kissed under Archer's Peak. It was pitch black outside and I was lost."

"Actually, two years, five months, and two days ago, I was helping Nova with our plans of going to Earth. It was dark outside and we were at my quarters," I nodded in agreement as Elita-1 scoffed and started looking uneasy.

"Um, no. You were there. You told me that I was the most beautiful thing you've ever laid an optic on!" her voice was getting a bit agitated. She started recollecting the memory.

"Are you sure that it was me who was with you?" Optimus asks raising an eyebrow. She began to cry a little.

"Look, I'm not crazy, you have to believe me," her fists started clenching tighter.

"Why don't you project the memory. Maybe that can straighten things out a little," I say at the expense of getting slapped again. She looks desperate enough to nod and do it. We see the memory playing and I immediately clear up the problem. "Isn't that Ultra Magnus?" I whisper to Optimus.

"What? That is not Ultra Magnus. It can't be," she says sniffling a little.

"Actually, that is. I'd know him anywhere," Optimus nods his head to prove his point. Elita-1 was gasping small breathes of air and looking between us and the memory. She backed up slowly and ran out of his office crying.

"Wait, Elita-" I start to chase after her but Optimus stops me.

"Let her go. I think it's best if you don't encounter her just yet," he says sadly. I give him a nod and he looks at where she slapped me. "It's not bad, just red. The mark will go away soon," his gaze strays from my cheek to around my face. He looks at me in surprise. "Nova, you're glowing," a smile forms on his face while the color in mine flushes completely.

"What? Why would you say that," I back up and ask defensively, looking away from his optics.

"Nothing, it's a compliment. Your skin looks beautiful, baby," he says trying to hug me again but I just fidget out of his grasp.

"Baby? What baby? I don't know what you're talking about," I start sweating buckets. He just looks at me concerned.

"Have you been okay these last few days? You've been acting strangely. What are you? Pregnant?" he chuckles softly.

"Who told you that?" I yell as I press against his desk, opposite him. He drops his jaw slightly and stares at me. _I really need to learn how to keep my mouth shut._

"_You_ told me that... just now," he whispers. The next thing I know, he walks up to me and rubs my back. "Hey, it's okay. I'm not mad. It's fine," I whimper in his embrace, waiting for him to realize the painful truth. "That just means I'm a fath-" his words falter out. _Give the man a prize. _"I'm not the father, am I?"

* * *

><p><em>Dun dun dun! I'm a bit mad at myself. This story is starting to sound like a really cheesy soap opera. Oh why? If only my very good readers will review so I could have some inspiration!<em>

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	4. Chapter 4

_Wassup my peeps? Forgive me for this chapter if it feels too skippy, but I needed to move the story quicker and stuff. Also, to clear up any doubts people have in their brains. Nova is NOT a holoform and Optimus and her have NOT spark bonded, which means they couldn't possibly have had a child yet._

_**Alter Ego#2:** Here that? That's an explanation. It's quite explainy. Cool huh?_

_**Me:** Yeeaaahh. Coooll. *looks at #2 nervously*_

_**Alter Ego#2:** You wanna hear another explanation? **She doesn't own anything!**_

_**Me: **That's a disclaimer, not an explanation._

**_Alter Ego#2:_**_ Oh. Whatever!_

* * *

><p>I couldn't look him in the optics. Heck, I couldn't look at anything. All I did was put my head down and clamp my optics shut, whimpering under his heat. He slowly backed away from me.<p>

"How, how could this happen?" Optimus whispered quietly to himself in disbelief.

"P-please. Please don't be mad. It wasn't my fau-" he cut me off from my insignificant whispers.

"How couldn't it be your fault?" he started calmly. But he wasn't serene for long, "There's only one way you get a hatchling!" he brought his voice up gradually.

"Optimus, let me explain. I-it's not a hatchling," I stifle out. There was a silence. He understood what I meant. He knew I carried a human and I could feel his optics glaring holes through my head. "Please, let me explain. Riku didn't even-" _I really need to choose my words with more precision._

"It's Riku's?" he scolded me in a way I've never heard from him before. He slammed a fist against the small side table and it made me flinch noticeably. I took a small peek, terrified of the image I was going to see. Optimus was pacing a bit, looking for something, anything he could get his hands on, and he threw it on the ground. The crash of a small vase made me jump and start a fresh wave of tears.

"Optimus, if you would just liste-" he glared at me and I shut my mouth.

"Listen to you? Why would I listen to _you_ anymore?" he shouted at me.

"No, don't say that-"

"The last time I listened to you, you told me I was the only one you ever wanted, everything you needed. I thought my love was enough for you. And now I find you pregnant with a human that belongs to someone who died!" he yelled violently. There was so much rage in his body. It directed all it's energy to his fist which slammed itself against the metal walls, denting it heavily. This made me cry a little harder.

"I-i-if you'd just let me talk," I gasped out. Just then, Lennox emerged from the door with panic.

"Is anything wrong? I heard some-" he stopped as the scene before him finally make some sort of sense. I'm guessing he thought Optimus was beating me because I still had a big mark from Elita-1. Also, because I was crying in the corner while Optimus sported bloody knuckles._ If only you knew, Lennox._ "What the_ hell_ Optimus?" he said with disgust as he rushed over towards me and checked if I was okay.

"I'm f-fine," I stuttered out, avoiding any eye contact with anything.

"No, you're not. You're going down with me, away from that," he pointed his head towards Optimus who was finally calming down and realizing what he had just done. He tried to say something as well as I, but Will didn't really let anyone respond because the next thing I knew, I was being led out of the tiny office. We traveled down to the rec. room with a comforting silence before Lennox started talking.

"What happened in there? Did he hurt you? You're wounded," he says soothingly, checking my face.

"No, he didn't. That was my mistake," I didn't want him to know that Elita slapped me earlier. He would've done something that would make me feel even more guilty. "Will... he knows I have Riku's child."

"Oh, I-I'm sorry," he begins awkwardly.

"Don't be. I'm glad he knows but he didn't give me a chance to tell him exactly what happened. I don't know why but... he was different. When I told him, he was yelling at me," he looks at me confused. "I know that yelling is common to other people but this is different. He doesn't yell. At anyone. Especially me. The worst he does is give a stern scold. I felt so... scared. I've never seen him like that." The thought of Optimus in a state of such anguish gave me chills, especially since that hatred was directed at me. Will was starting to understand my situation.

"Well, hey, remember what I told you last year?" he asks with a soft grin. I shake my head childishly. "I said that I always got your back. And right now, you need as much help as I can give. Don't worry. I'll talk to him," he says, leaving me on the couch.

* * *

><p>"Nova, hey it's okay," Mikaela consoles. She came over to pick Mizuki and me up to go to a nearby mall. She found me crying by myself after about half an hour from when Will left.<p>

"No it's not," I bawl, "He didn't even say anything. All he did was yell at me." I told them what had happened after I dropped the bomb on Optimus.

"Hey, buck up a bit. The whole point of going shopping is to focus on _us_. Some fun," Mizuki says in a cheery attitude. I sniff up any dignity I had left and fix a dainty smile on my face.

"You know what? You're right," I straighten up and the others stand up from the couch we were sitting on. "Wait," I stop them, "But first, I need to find Elita. She's in desperate need of a girls night out." They agree with a quick nod. We head towards her room, in hopes that she might be there. Lucky enough, she was.

"Elita?" I squeak out as I crack the door open. I heard her sniffle and try to wipe her tears away hastily.

"Go away! The last thing I need is you," she fails in an effort at a yell. All three of us grimly creep in. I sat on her bed, next to her, feeling as guilty as I've ever felt in my entire life.

"Look, Elita. I want to apologize." I have no clue what I'm apologizing for but it seems to calm her down. "I can't imagine how much this hurts. It's admirable how strong you are to hold up so well," I say vaguely.

"Th-thanks," she says, finally making contact with my optics, "I'm sorry for slapping you earlier," Mizuki and Mikaela exchange slightly horrified looks. "To be honest, I really wasn't mad at _you_. I guess I was just caught up in the moment. I mean, it's not everyday someone tells you that you've been dating the wrong person"

"No probem. I would've done the same thing. No offense." She giggles a little. "But no one is at fault here. If we want to blame anyone, it's Ultra Magnus. The twins probably put him up to it." She clutches the hand I extended to her tighter when I mentioned the twins.

"I hate them so much right now. Both pairs," she grunts out.

"Well, we have a small offer for you then," I say, picking up the mood. "We're going shopping today to get our minds off of the horrible things that conclude from men." She smiles at me.

"I can come?" I acknowledge gently. "Thanks."

"Well, then. Let's go," Mikaela says, leading us to her car.

* * *

><p>"There. Right there. Nobody dare argue with me, we're going in there first," I point towards a small salon. "Everybody here is in need of a new look," I turn around and am greeted by three agreeing faces. We step inside and take a small magazine filled with all sorts of hair styles.<p>

"Um, count me out guys. I think I like my hair like this," Mikaela says, slowly backing away from the magazine.

"Aw, party pooper," I mock. She gives me a 'whatever' look. By the time we leave the place, Elita's hair has changed from a crazy poofy cloud, to a layered, dirty pink style, with gentle curls at the edge. My hair went from a standard hairstyle, to a medium, purple tinted, layered bob. With my signature side-swept bangs. Although we looked like two completely different people, the person with the most dramatic difference was Mizuki. Her long, jet-black hair turned into a short, spiky bob. We convinced her to dye her tips blonde.

"Oh my goodness. You guys look amazing," Mikaela gasped as she inspected our hair. "Whoa, Mizuki. You look so different!"

"Yup, she's doing it all for Bee," I say, nudging her with my elbow. Her face blushed into a very deep red.

"Shut up," she said bashfully.

"You have a thing for Bumblebee?" Elita gasped out. Mikaela's eyes were wide open in shock. They both looked at each other, then me, and we all started squealing and jumping up and down.

"Be quiet! People are staring," Mizuki hushed us.

"Oh! Tell us everything," Mikaela said, grabbing her hands.

"Nothing's happened yet. Calm down," she said with a laugh.

"Well, now we know what we're shopping for. Some sexy clothes to get Bee's attention," I say, making her blush some more. "Don't argue with me, I'm pregnant." We all laugh as we start making our way from store to store. It's been about two hours and everyone has found at least one thing.

"Hey Nova, shouldn't you be shopping for baby things? I mean, you're delivering soon right? You need to prepare," Elita says, patting my stomach.

"You know, you're right. But I don't even know what to get. Or where to start. Or what to do after I deliver. I don't even know what to expect! Oh, I'm going to be a horrible mother." I slump onto a bench and stare at my almost baby bump.

"Why do you think you have three girls here with you? Come, my darling. Let us lead you onto the world... of baby stuff," she says dramatically, holding out an elbow for me to grab.

"Wait, where are we going to get the money?" Mikaela asks. An idea pops into my head.

"Miki, my dear, how would you like to help me plan a baby shower?" All three girls shriek with happiness. "It'll be easy. We'll go into the store, scan items we want to lay away, have a baby shower and see what stuff we get, then buy the rest."

"You my friend, are a genius," she responds as we head into a huge baby store.

* * *

><p>We arrive at home at around 11. Who knew shopping for an unborn baby was exhausting. I reached the door to my room but hesitated when I stretched an arm for the handle. As if he read my mind, Jazz spoke up behind me.<p>

"He's not there." I turned to look at the owner of the voice. "He went over to find Sam and ask him for help with the president."

At that point, I drop my short lived façade and sigh a heavy sigh.

"Oh Jazz, what am I going to do? I don't know if I could even be in the same room as him without it turning violent. What if- What if he hurts someone? Or himself? Or me?" I ask, leaning against my door. Jazz looked at me as if I was a silly child. "What? Why are you laughing? I'm serious."

"He already knows about the baby," he chuckled.

"Um, duh. That's why I'm scared."

"No, I mean he knows it was unintentional. After you left, I saw him go down to Ratchet and ask a few questions. Ratchet explained everything and now Optimus is moping around like a big aft," he laughed a little when I started smiling.

"Really? He's not mad?" I straighten up my back with joy.

"As far as I know, nope." He gives me a bright smile.

"Finally, I love this child too much to have him screw it up," I say, doin the best I can to hug my stomach.

"Go to bed. He'll be coming back soon. I don't know much about the crazy mind games you play with him, but I know for a fact that if he comes home to you sleeping, he'll go nuts trying to figure out how to apologize."

"You're the best Jazz," I give him a hug and step inside my room with a new sense of relief. _Finally, all is right again._

* * *

><p>I wake up, feeling dizzy as usual. But something is different in my room. I blink myself awake to see that there are a trail of rose petals leading outside. A note is beside the first one.<p>

_Get dressed, there's something for you outside._

I sigh a little at the cheesiness of all this. But at least it managed to make my headache go away. As quick as I can, I wash my body, brush my teeth, and slip on anything I can find. It's a good thing we went shopping for mommy clothes yesterday because my baby bump grew increasingly fast. It's already starting to block my view of my feet. But just barely, at least 1/4th.

I follow the petals to the cafeteria. They lead onto a small circular table in the middle of the room. The table is decorated with a deep red velvet cloth and a small flower in petite cup. I walk up to it and reach for the note in the middle.

_Turn around._

I follow the instructions and am greeted with a sheepish looking Optimus. He starts to talk but I don't let him. I go straight for a hug.

"I'm sorry for acting the way that I did," he vibrated into my ear.

"It's okay. As long as you still love me," my tone similar to that of an innocent child. He gives a soft chuckle.

"I'll always love you," I gripped him tighter in my hug. The only thing that separated us was a small kick. "What was that?" he asked with a smile. We both looked down at my stomach and see an active little girl.

"That feels weird," I laugh out gently. I turn my head to the table, "So what's this for?"

"It's your apology-breakfast. Made special for my two favorite girls," he said, rubbing the baby.

"That's too sweet," I coo. "But good luck finding the right menu. I swear my cravings are getting more random each day." He laughed a little and sat me down as he went to a small food cart and pushed it over.

"I didn't need to guess. I know you too well,"

"I don't know, I'm pretty unbalanced right now," I say skeptically as he revealed a small plate of pesto pasta sprinkled with baked pineapple chunks and a chocolate covered biscotti. "Wow, that's scary. Are you reading my mind?" I say in shock that he managed to get me exactly what I was looking for. He gives me a soft smile and that's when I notice a bruise on his chin. "Hey, what happened to your chin?" I bring his face down for closer inspection.

"Oh, that. Well, yesterday, when Ratchet told me about what happened, let's just say... I was a bit stubborn. He threw a wrench at me," he said bashfully. At any other time, I would've wanted to kill Ratchet for hurting him, but today, I felt like he needed it. I gave it a quiet kiss.

"There, all better," I said under my breath. He returned my kiss with another one.

"You're turning out to be a good mommy." He surveyed my optics. I smiled sheepishly. "Speaking of babies..."

"...Babies...?" I interrupt in confusion. _When did mommy equal babies?_

"What are we naming ours?" I drop my confusion and immediately start testing out names. This man knows the right things to say.

"Hmm, Callie, Laura, Sarah?" I say randomly. He thinks for a while before shaking his head. "Umm, Lizzy, Nicky, Ricky, Mandy," I list out. "Well maybe Aman- no. It's cute, but, hmm." He just sits there, watching me think. "Why don't you think of some?" I sigh out calmly.

"Bonnie?" he shrugs after a while. For some reason, I gasp sharply and it frightened him a little.

"That's it! It's perfect!" He jumps back a few inches from my outburst.

"Bonnie it is," he chuckles. Throughout the rest of breakfast, we just talk about what we're going to do. I told him that I let the girls handle the baby shower and that we already looked at stuff we should get. Optimus suggested we move into a bigger room and prepare to baby proof everything. During our entire conversation, there was a miniscule thought, tugging at the back of my head. _We're talking about all these family things when we technically still aren't a family. He really needs to propose and soon. I don't want my child asking too many questions when it comes to that. But, why doesn't it look like he even cares?_

"Nova," I hear a whisper from the doors. I see Mikaela, Elita, and Mizuki waving me over.

"I guess the public awaits," I tell him as I give him a kiss on the cheek.

"See you later," he called after me as I escaped through the door. They drag me to the rec. room -which is practically next door -and spill out a few things from a big bag.

"So what did you guys need?" I ask in confusion.

"We needed your opinions," Mikaela groans as she opens up a small portfolio. "We have been up all night planning your baby shower and now all we need are a few personal touches." My mouth gapes open as I see how much work they got done.

"You guys work quick. Did you even sleep at all?"

"It was like 3 when we decided to start using coffee. Then at around 6 we slept," Mizuki yawned. I gave her a surprised look.

"You only had two hours of sleep?" I ask.

"Two and a half, but that doesn't matter," Elita says quickly. She directs my attention back to the portfolio, "What does matter is your decision on what color we're going to use. Also, what did you want the banner to say? We we're thinking the generic, 'It's a Girl' but if you had something else in mind..."

"Well, we did settle on a name." They all gasp just as sharp as I did. "It's Bonnie." They congratulate me the usual way by squealing and being surprised. I try to calm them down, "Yeah, I'm glad the name thing is settled, but there is something that's been bothering me." They all lean in close as I tell them about my worries of Optimus not proposing.

"Oh don't worry. I bet you he's got some crazy elaborate plan or whatever," Elita comforts.

"You sure? When he was talking to me, it seemed like he didn't really care," I say, furrowing my eyebrows.

"Please, that guy? Trust me, when it comes to you, he will always care," Mikaela contributes. I nod my head in thanks. "Enough gossip! If we finish today, we can get this shower up by tomorrow!" She pauses for a moment then looks at me with a hint of embarrassment, "Oh, hey, um, by the way. We already sent out invitations and stuff so, we kinda _have _to get this done in time for tomorrow."

My mouths slowly opens itself as my optics widen. "You're kidding, right?" I get a negative response. "Shouldn't it be like a week from now?"

"Well, you're going to deliver soon and we wanted to give you a proper party for your first child," Mizuki says quietly. I take a deep breath.

"All righty then, we better get working."

* * *

><p><strong>(The Next Morning)<strong>

Surprisingly, the baby shower gets completed and set-up yesterday. It took all day but it was worth it. Today, all I needed to worry about was what I was going to wear. Everyone was attending so I had to look my best. The only one not there was Mikaela, she had gotten a strange call from Sam and had to investigate. Today, I decided to wear a lavender sundress that touched the floor. It tied around my neck with a darker shade of lacey fabric. I was checking my dress out in the mirror when someone knocked on my door.

"It's open!" I yell as I see that my baby bump has grown at least one inch bigger. "You are a fast one aren't you?" I whisper to Bonnie.

"Nova, you ready?" Jazz says as he enters, he walks up to me and slowly spins me around. "Wow, you are seriously glowing," he says amazed.

"Thanks. Where's Optimus?" I ask, looking to see if he was behind Jazz.

"He's-um-getting a-um... well, let's just say he's got something for you," Jazz stumbles out.

"Aww, for the baby?" I pout with happiness. Jazz shakes his head.

"He told me not to tell you. All I'm allowed to say is that he'll be meeting us at the shower a little bit late. For now, I am here to escort you." He offers an elbow that I gladly take. "I shall also be your personal liaison until Optimus arrives." I almost gag at the word.

"Ew, don't say liaison. It reminds me to much of Comb-over," I shudder out. Regardless of the fact that _I _was a liaison myself, this Galloway guy just rubbed me the wrong way.

"Comb-over?" he asks me.

"It's our new nickname for Galloway." He starts laughing for a while.

"Heheh, that's a good one. Almost as good as Metal-Wedgie. You always knew how to make inferior nicknames," he opines, patting my shoulder.

"Only for those who need a good kick in the ego." We arrive at Sarah Lennox's house. She offered to let us use her house for the party. Sarah told us that she wished someone would have offered her their house to use for a baby shower because it would've made it much easier and she wanted to pass the kindness. As well as a few words of wisdom. Although all these ladies only had two days to get their schedules checked and presents, everyone came and they all bore goodies. Even Mikaela left me something.

"This is perfect, guys. Thank you so much," I tear up as I hug Elita and Mizuki.

"No problem. I'm just glad we got to use Sarah's house. It's so pretty outside here with the gazebo and the fountain. It really made our job way easier," Elita says. She was wearing a soft pink dress that stopped below her knees and was decorated with brown swirls. Mizuki was wearing a white baby doll dress with a brown ribbon under the bust line and on the edges. It stopped just above the knee and was paired with a pale green clip on the side of her head.

"Yeah, especially since it was only us three and we only had an entire night to finish. I'm pretty sure there are still bags under my eyes," Mizuki laughs out.

"Oh, Mizuki you look perfect. I bet you even Bee would agree with me," I teased her. She gave up denying me and just went with it. "Hey, speaking of him, has he seen the new you yet?"

"Nope, but he's coming here. We asked him to help Jazz with the heavy lifting and stuff," she answers casually. I poke her gently and point behind her... where Bee had just arrived from the front door.

"There's your prince charming. Go, go fall in love," Elita says and I try to stifle a laugh. Mizuki heads inside and we sneak up next to her and try to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Hey, Bee," she says softly. Bee looks up at her for a second and almost drops the empty punch bowl he was holding. She had to help him lift it up again.

"Mizuki? Is that you?" he asks, setting the punch bowl down. She nods shyly. "Wow, you look so different. You're beautiful," he gasps. They both blush at what he accidently blurted out. "I-I-I mean- I um," he starts, but she puts a finger on his lips.

"You can just ask me out if you want to." She leaves him dumbfounded. It was a perfect set-up for a little cat and mouse action. She comes back over to where we were hiding and she finally lets out all her excitement.

"Ahh! That was so cool!" she whispers loudly.

"Oh, that was a perfect execution. And your form... ten points! You learn quickly my protege," I tell her as I grip her hands. We were in the middle of talking about how she could expand the mystery but then Jazz interrupts us, with a grim look on his face.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you ladies, but this is important," he offered solemnly. Jazz turned towards me and laid his next words with as much professionalism as he could muster. "Nova, Optimus just contacted us. It's Megatron."

* * *

><p><em>Okay, I think you all know what's going to happen next. Again, apologies for crap-chap but the next one will be better, hopefully. Maybe your reviews will make better chapters, we'll never know until you try. <em>

_**DarkAngelMel2**: I've found that I've developed a small habit of waiting for you to review my chapters 'cuz you've reviewed almost all of them and it gives me the happies. Call me weird but, meh. _

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	5. Chapter 5

_So... Here's a new chapter... Yeah, you're welcome._

_**Alter Ego:** Cool._

_**Me:** I know._

_**Alter Ego:** **You own anything?**_

**_Me: No._**

_**Alter Ego#3:** This banter is lame._

_**Me:** I know :(_

* * *

><p>It took some painful convincing, but Jazz reluctantly let me tag along to find Optimus. They were pretty far away and in the car, I started to get a bit antsy. Even the cool leather seats wouldn't give me peace.<p>

"I told them! Didn't I tell them? I warned them, all of them!" I tell Mizuki. We were inside of Jazz, impatiently waiting to arrive at the location that Optimus signaled us to go to. By the looks of it, it was in a forest preserve.

"Nova, what are you talking about?" Mizuki asked, looking extremely worried.

"I'm talking about the conference that stupid Galloway had. I told them something bad was going to happen. But they didn't listen, did they?" I was overreacting just a tad, but you can't blame me, "Why doesn't anybody listen to me? I mean, did I call it or what? I even called Jazz's death! No offence, baby."

"None taken," he said calmly, "But Nova, seriously, I don't care if you're pregnant right now, but you have got to calm down. Your grip on my steering wheel is painful," I just noticed I was squeezing the life out of his wheel. I could see my knuckles turn from white to red as I let go.

"Sorry, just a bit nervous is all. You know, because Megatron is fragging alive and I'm too pregnant to do slag about it," I say sarcastically.

"Just one more month Jazz, you can wait one month. You're friend is still somewhere in there, buried under all the hormones," I hear him whisper to himself. We finally arrive but what I see is not what I like. It's already a battlefield. The stench of gun powder and smoke attack my nose. Even the air felt stingy. Mizuki and I were gently popped out of the shifting Jazz. I saw Sam running towards me, breathing heavily.

"Sam. Sam! What happened?" I grab him and try to stop him, but he doesn't. As of right now, I'm being awkwardly dragged by him. _Ew, he's sweaty._

"I'll explain later, get in Bee!" he yells, practically throwing me in. _Yup, that's Sam all right_. Inside, I see an old familiar face, and a new panicked one. Mizuki is shoved in next to me. I look behind us and doubt what I'm seeing. Megatron and Starscream are getting away. This is not good. The air in my chest escapes violently as I turn around and pick Sam up by the collar.

"Tell me what the frag just happened or so help me, I will-," I start, but he doesn't seem to be paying attention. Something's happening with his eyes.

"Dude! How do you keep getting hot girls?" the other guy in the car asks, looking at Mizuki and me. Bee didn't take too well to his comment and choked him with the seatbelt.

"Bee!" I get an angry whir in response. He must've gotten hit in his vocal chords again.

"Are you aware that you're pregnant?" Sam asks me. I look at him for a second before I shake his dirty collar again.

"Tell me what happened!" He backed off and put his hands up to calm me down.

"Okay, okay! Well, it all kind of started when I found a cube sliver stuck to my jacket..." He was speaking very quickly, but then again, when didn't he? "...I touched it and everything in the cube got absorbed into me. Mega-butt wanted whatever I had in my brain but he only got a few things. He was just about to open my brain when Optimus showed up and kicked their asses. Nova, you should've seen the fight that went on, it was all actiony and stuff-." He was getting off track.

"Sam, hey! Focus. What happened after the fight?" I snapped, tightening my grip. He stared at me with misty eyes and placed an unsteady hand on my shoulders. My optics flickered from one eye to the other, trying to get the answer from there.

"Nova..." he croaked, "Optimus… died." I didn't believe him. This wasn't true. If I knew anything about Optimus, he was basically invincible. I started laughing nervously while crying at the same time.

"N-no he didn't. You're lying. This is just a joke right?" He stared at me again, a frown appearing on his face. I felt my spark drop and shatter into a million pieces. Everything started feeling heavy.

"Nova," Mizuki whispered from behind me. I turned my head towards her as she rubbed my back. I finally let my guard down and sobbed silently into her shoulder. There was a stone cold silence that filled the car. The only sounds that filled its emptiness were my pathetic tears.

We arrived at a junky looking place and decided to spend the night there, planning on what to do. I saw Sam go into an alley to listen to the radio with Leo following him. I felt too pissed to move, so I leaned against the sharp fence.

"Why is he with us?" I unintentionally snapped at Mudflap.

"That's exactly what I asked Skids. He don't know, too," he said, finding a spot to sit.

"Alls I know is dat he a wuss. Only package he got is the one from FedEx," Skids says, bumping his brother's fist. On any given day, I would laugh at that, but today, I was just too cranky. The scorching heat wasn't helping either. "Ayo Nova, we sorry 'bout what happened. The big guy was a good dude," he tries to comfort. I attempt a smile but it fades quickly. Mizuki's frame appears within my sight as she walks up to me.

"Nova, we need to change. I doubt any good can come from running in dresses. There are some clothes in the building." I let her drag my lifeless body towards a dusty old factory. I rummage around and instantly find something that fits. A pair of gray, rolled up sweats and a plaid, purple, baby-doll tee. I see her reaching for a pair of pants, which, by the way, flatter no figure, and I stop her.

"Wait. Wear this. It'll make Bee putty in your hands." I toss her some jeggings that I found and a black and yellow halter top. She gives me a soft giggle. We both change our flats to rubber shoes. I grab a pair for Mikaela, the boots she's wearing look painful.

"Yo Mudflap, what are we going to do with this shrimp taco?" I hear Skids say as I toss Miki her shoes.

"Let's pop a cap in his ass, throw him in the trunk and then nobody gon' know nothing, na what I mean?" he says with total seriousness.

"Yo, bumper cars! I'm hearing you, 'kay? I'm right here, hearin' you!" Leo says pointing a finger. "No one's popping caps in any asses! I've had a hell of a day!" Primus, he whines more than I do... and I'm pregnant.

"I think someone's already shoved a cap up his aft," I whisper to the twins and they snicker a bit. Leo gives us a death glare but I just wave and look innocent.

"Sam, look. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to the authorities and tell them the truth, so I'm not an accomplice!" Leo begs him. I'm fed up with this guy.

"Hey! Curly-top!" He turns around again but jumps at the sight of me being closer than he anticipated. "Let me ask you something. Have you done anything in your life that's worth bragging about?" He looks as if he was going to say something but drops it. "No, right? That's what I thought. Well guess what Barbie! The hero doesn't get to save the day without scrapping a knee! Either grow some balls, or wake up from the fairy-tale you're living in!" Fury is blazing from my optics and he sees it. I simmer down a smidge and whisper, "You want a title? You want something for people to remember you by? Stop complaining and help us save the world." I let him think about this for a bit but he just walks off. I curl my fists up and let a hot tear drop. Sam drops cautiously next to me and tries to sooth me by rubbing my shoulders.

"It's okay, we've saved the world before, we can do it again." I look at him and nod. "But we need to get you to NEST. You're not safe here, the baby-." I stop him.

"Sam, you're too important. I can't give you up now, unlike _someone,_" I refer to Leo. "We're in this together, we've always been." He gives me a hesitant look but slowly replaces it with a reassuring one.

* * *

><p>It's about sunset and I've finished chucking the random pieces of wood I found into a small pit the twins made. All of a sudden, I get a bad feeling and I shudder violently. It was almost like a ghost ran through me.<p>

"Ayo Nova, you good?" Skids asks me. I shake my head.

"I feel like there's been a disturbance in the world."

* * *

><p><strong>(Meanwhile, at N.E.S.T.)<strong>

Optimus' body had just touched the ground ungracefully with a painful thud. All the soldiers gathered respectfully around his cold, lifeless body, cursing those who thought it was a good idea to just throw him to the ground like dirt. The Autobots appear as well, filling the frigid air with a somber and respectful silence. Everything is tense... well, it was, until Galloway arrives rudely to interrupt the scene.

Ironhide has just had enough with this stuck up human and pulls his cannons on the unwanted visitors.

"You want a piece of me? I'll tear you apart!" he spat violently, as his back turned against Optimus in order to protect him. He's stood by that mech for most of his career, he wasn't going to stop now.

Lennox tries his best to calm them down. Failing miserably at that.

"Worse than Nova," he mutters under his breath. "Tell them to lower their weapons!" he shouts as he bangs the car Galloway is in. This annoying liaison even had the audacity to arrive with a pack of _armed_ cars.

Galloway steps out, comb-over flopping about in the wind. He didn't really care about what happened to the huge metal freaks that inhabited his world, as long as they knew that when he said, 'Jump,' they respond with, 'How high?'

"Your N.E.S.T. team is done, Major. Stop your anti-Decepticon operations and return to Diego Garcia for further orders," he hollers at everyone egotistically. All the tension had been gradually replaced with shock as the Autobots lower their weapons.

"Psst! Elita!" Sideswipe calls, "Check out what they're saying." She gives a curt nod and silently folds down to her alt. and pops up behind Epps to listen.

"This is our war now and we'll win it like always. With strategy," he declares at the nearby soldiers.

"Idiot," she growls under her breath as she steps up from her hiding place. "So what's our strategy, huh? Killing us off? Tell them our secrets? Give up the kid?"

"All options will be considered," he backs up towards his car. Galloway didn't recognize this soldier, although he felt he should have. Her blazing pink hair really should have triggered something in his memory. Regardless, he didn't care. She's not important.

Elita made a run for him but Epps struggled to hold her back. His entire aura just rubbed her the wrong way. Had he no respect for anything?

"Get that pile of scrap metal back to Diego Garcia!" Galloway yelled.

Well that answered Elita's question.

Epps didn't even bother to talk her down. When they heard that, he let her go, wanting to see some justice served.

She sped towards the coward, pinning him to his car. "Scrap metal, huh?" She gave him a heavy blow to the gut and he doubled over. "More like you're guardian angel, bitch." She delivered that line with a fist to his nose.

"I really don't like that guy. He is an ass-_hole_," Epps enunciates.

* * *

><p><strong>(Back in the Junkyard)<strong>

"You sure you good?" Skids asks again, stepping down a bit for a better look.

"Better now, the disturbance has found some sort of balance. Or at least that's what it feels like," I say, heaving e new chunk of wood into the pit.

"The baby just probably wiggled around," Mikaela said, patting Bonnie. She's rewarded with a little kick. "Aw, cute."

"That still feels really weird," I chuckle out. My gaze wanders over towards Sam. "So now what do we do?" He just looks at me, all jittery and whatnot.

"We wait. For what, I don't know. All I know is that we need a miracle," he tells me writing some more stuff down. I sigh and walk towards Bee.

"If we wait, then I shall make use of this time," I belt out dramatically. "Hey, Honeybee. Over here," I say, gesturing him to come closer to me. "Let me see your voice box." He smoothly moves a few nuts and bolts out of the way to reveal a small chamber with a box protruding with wires lay. I gently detach it and pick it out and take a closer look. "Well there's your problem..." I show him a few frayed wires. "You clipped them again. Best I can do is connect them, but I can't promise they'll hold up. I need tape or something." I place the box back into his throat and attach a few wires back into it. "Try not to speak so much. Save it for when Mizuki comes over," I tease.

"Haha, very funny," he chirps in a way only I can understand. Sometimes I feel lucky that we have a sibling bond to carry even the simplest of messages across.

"Now you see how it feels whenever you bag on my relationship." I stiffen up in triumph. We see Sam doing that weird, seizure-like thing he's been doing for a while. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's getting codes from the All-Spark," Bee whispers in awe.

"All-Spark you say. Hmm, maybe I can do something about that." I walk up to Sam who is completely ignoring the fact that I'm right in front of his face. "Sam, sweetie? I'm just going to scan your eyes so I can see what you see, all right?" He doesn't respond, probably still locked up in whatever state of mind he's in. I cup his cheeks to stop him from wriggling around so much and I prepare to scan him. I gaze deep into his bright brown eyes and feel something burning my optics. It starts out as a sensation so hot that it's almost cold, and in an instant, that sensation engulfs my entire body and I am repelled forcefully backwards into Mikaela's grasp. My external senses are the first to activate as I force air down my throat. I look towards Bee with fearful eyes.

"S-scan her, scan her," I inaudibly gasp out, pointing to Bonnie. He understands what I'm trying to say and immediately passes a relatively tickly bright blue light through my stomach. He nods with a cheerful chirp and I relax the tension in my arms. Mikaela helps me stand on my feet as I pant for more air.

"So -uh. What happened?" Skids questions, getting on his knees and getting a better look at me. I lay a sweaty hand on his cool shoulder armor before finding the strength to speak.

"It's something I picked up from Prime. He did this thing where he scans the eyes of people to get a good idea of what they're feeling." I recall the day when he taught me how to do it. It brought fresh pain to my spark but I did the best I could to shrug it off. "Of course, no one notices it because it takes vorns to master and decipher that skill. When I tried it on Sam, I guess the energy from the All-Spark was too much for me to handle. I'm just glad Bonnie didn't absorb the power. This girl is a fighter, I can feel it."

We start the fire and let its warmth envelop us in a soft embrace. The smell of embers tickles my nose.

"So Sam, how is-forgive me-how _was_ college?" I see that he's listening this time.

"Well, it was nice. Except for my idiot roommate and the psycho Decepti-freak," he started sarcastically. He paused for a minute, pondering on a thought. "Hey, you know the story you told us a while ago? About how you developed the human-hood transformation or something?"

"Techno-organism," I correct, nodding with confusion.

"You said that a Decepticon had stolen some of your work right?"

Again, I agree.

"Well, there's this girl, Alice. I think she had that technology."

I stay silent for a while, shocked by how quickly the Decepticons figured out five vorns worth of research.

"Hold on..." I linger on an idea. "When she transformed, how big was she?"

"The same exact size as her human," Sam said with a hint of worry. I let out a miniature breath of relief which cools of my body entirely.

"Okay, well, that doesn't necessarily mean she has the same technology. She could've just copied an animatronic puppet or something." I smile wearily at Sam. "You got me worried there for a second, fleshy." My gaze drifted from him to Bee and Mizuki. They were huddled in a small corner, his holoform cradling her on his hood. I poke Mikaela who sat next to me. "Look how cute they are," I whisper quietly into her ear. She let out a small giggle.

"Aw, they look so happy together," she coos. Her head turned towards me and her gaze morphed into a caring hug. I don't know how, but she knew exactly what I was thinking. "We all miss Optimus, Nova. Don't be sad, he wouldn't want you to beat yourself up about it."

"I think I'm cursed," I whimper out. "First Riku, now Optimus. I should stop dating." She laughs a bit at my solution.

"Don't say that. You were meant to be loved, everyone is. Why do you think we're all born with hearts-er, sparks." She gently traces the straggly pieces of hair covering my face out of the way. Bee's holoform disappears and the two lovebirds come back to join us. Sam puts on a guilty look as he walks up to the shifting Bumblebee.

"Bee, it's okay if you hate me, I get it." He avoids Sam's gaze. "I messed up, I'm sorry."

_Wait, what exactly did he do?_

_"Young fella, you are the person I care about most in my life. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away,"_ Bee says through his radio.

"Nova, I'm sorry, too." He turned his attention towards me. I cock my head to the side, waiting to hear exactly what he was sorry for. He understood my confusion. "He's dead because of me. He came here to protect me and he's dead."

_Now I get it_.

Sam takes a sad, wavering sigh before continuing. "I'm going to make it right. I'll turn myself in."

"Wait, wait, wait!" I get up and glide towards him. "You can't do that. Sam, you've become family. You all have, and family needs to stick together." I felt my throat croak from a pending tear. Bee acknowledges my statement and shifts to his alt. mode, allowing Sam to sit on him. "Sam you can't do that. You can't just turn yourself in. I don't want to lose another person in my life."

He answers me with a bit of a skeptical look.

"Please, think of the baby. No biological father, no paternal father, and now, no human uncle. This type of stress is going to make her break out and have gray hair." Sam lets out a small breathy chuckle. His eyes go serious for a second as he realizes something.

"Hey, wait." He paces a bit as he rolls up his sleeves. "You know the glyphs? The symbols, in my head?"

"So that's what I saw, I couldn't really tell. It was too jumbly," I say, taking inspection of his arm.

"That's old school, yo. That-that's like Cybertronian," Skids says squinting.

"Hey, you're right," I grab his arm in a more firm position and pass a finger through the symbol. "Yeah, I saw Optimus with stuff like this. Not to mention a few other Primes over back in Cybertron. I can't read it though." I lean in close to his ear. "And if I can't, you can bet they won't either," I mutter.

"Well, they have to mean something. Like-like a map or a message!" he exclaims, pacing around furiously. "It could lead to an energon source!" All of our optics brighten at the word. "We just need to find someone who can read it," he mumbles to himself. Just then, a certain traitor walks back through the gates.

"Aw, look who came sashaying back." Skids jerks a thumb towards Leo.

"Oh, Skids," I light up with praise. "I didn't know you knew words with more than two syllables."

"Heard it on T.V." he says proudly. _Eh, close enough. _

"Look man, hair growing like a Chia Pet. Look at him," Mudflap snickers.

"I admit, I had a mild panic attack earlier..."

"... That's 'cuz youse a pussy," Mudflap interrupts as the brothers bump fists.

"... I think I'm allowed that, considering what I've been through," he states as if he's all high and mighty now.

"What _you've_ been through?" I start to stand but Mikaela pulls me down, telling me to behave.

"Anyway, I heard you have a problem." He looks at all of us before speaking again. "I think I know someone who can help… Robo-Warrior."

* * *

><p><em>You like? I know you like. You like :). The rating is going up to M for language, so yeah. Thanks for the reviews and support my people. Remember, you can always just say hi when you review. I won't be mad. I promise!<em>

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	6. Chapter 6

_Oh look it! It's a shiny new chapter! It's so pretty that you probably might forgive me for not updating as quick as I usually do. Right? Huh?_

**_Alter Ego:_**_ Well actually-_

**_Alter Ego#2: _**_Shh! Be quiet! She's going to start the story! Besides, it's not her fault that she had another family vacation! It's summer!_

**_Alter Ego: _**_Okay, fine. I'll forgive you as long as I get to say the disclaimer._

**_Me:_**_ Go nuts._

**_Alter Ego: She owns nothing! Except her OC's and her imaginatory-es-ness._**

**_Me: _**_Well put._

* * *

><p>"You sure about this guy, Curly-top?" I question skeptically from behind his seat. I had changed into a white collared long-sleeve that flowed smoothly across my abdomen and tightened around other places. I also sported a pair of black free flowing dress pants and supporting flats.<p>

"Yeah, yeah. This guy, Robo-Warrior, knows everything alien. We revenge-hacked his site once and_ maybe_ I saw some of your alien drawings," he gestured much of that with his hands. "Hey, hey. Yo, this is it," he exclaims, pointing to a small deli-shop. Mikaela helps me step out of the car, keeping a careful eye to where each foot lands.

"Don't worry, getting out of a car won't kill me," I say jokingly. She guides me out with a caring hand on my back.

"That's what the last person who stepped out of Megatron said," she jokes back. I see Sam putting on a vibrant red and yellow cap, trying to hide his face. How ironic. Mizuki starts to climb out with an expression of not wanting to leave, but I stop her.

"Stay here, I know you want to." I give her a devilish smile and she returns me with a humorous one. No wonder Bee teased me so much in the past, this was fun!

"All right, wait here. I'll give you the go/no go. Okay?" Leo says with a new found dignity as he enters the store.

"Poser," I spit out.

"Why you gotta hate on him?" Sam defends. I give him a look that says 'really?'

"Sammy, your hearts in the right place, but your head..." I trail off with a disapproving shake.

"Yeah you're right," he snaps after a split second of thinking. We see Leo spasm-ing around like crazy from our position on the outside. "He's waving to us, let's go in."

_That's_ considered a wave?

"That's him! That's the guy right there!" Leo points at the man behind the counter as if his life depended on it. We take one look at the aforementioned man and we all flush as white as the smock he's wearing, shock is the only thing in my mind. I couldn't feel or hear anything around me. _This is the guy that we're letting control our fate?_

"You've got to be kidding me," Sam grumbles.

"Oh, Pit no," I chortle as well.

Simmons stares at us before letting reality punch him in the gut. "Okay, everyone out! Meat store's closed. That means you lady, out now!" he yells at his customers.

"Wait, you know this guy?" Leo asks in disbelief.

"Know him? I broke his nose," I break my monotonous spell and let the world come in contact with me again. "And got his precious make-believe club shut down."

"That's right! You're the case that broke Sector-Seven! No more security clearance, no retirement, no nothing," he said with so much rage, I could almost see the steam coming out of his ears. "All 'cause of you, your girlfriend, and your freaky mechanical alien..." I'm pretty sure he gave us one of his old once-overs. "Look at this one now, so mature. And you, classically hot-," he paused as he scanned my baby. "And pregnant are we? Finally tie the knot with Big Blue?"

"You son of a bi-." I was about to sock him in the eye out of the disrespect he showed both Optimus and I. He flinched just as I was about to make contact, but Sam quickly grabbed my hand. Leo was just watching in awe, quickly trying to catch up. _Take a picture, it lasts longer._

"What'd I do?" he yells in fright. "It was just a question!" I released some tension in my shoulders. I guess I was overreacting. Just a little.

"Wait, why did he call you a mechanical alien?" Leo blurts out randomly, hopelessly trying to pick up his pace.

"Later," Sam answers for me hastily, but pauses when he spots Simmons' mother. "Live with your mama?"

"No, my mama lives with me. It's a big difference. But that doesn't matter, what does is that they've got your face all over the news, alien boy. NBE-1's still kicking, huh? How'd that happen? Wait, don't answer that. I don't know what you're hiding but I don't want anything to do with it so-." I grab his shoulder as he turns away and try to talk him down gently.

"Look, we need your help," I say, defeated. I could feel my tanks getting ready to purge its contents with having to... _beg_... Simmons for his assistance.

"Oh do you, now?" he says smugly. I nod my head innocently.

"He-he starting to lose his mind..." I point to Sam. "That one's already lost his mind..." my hand flings towards Leo. "We've got three cars, one of which is in love, the other two are just annoying. Our only hope died, and on top of all this, we're all wanted fugitives." I give him some time to process what I just said, "He's got images mucking about in his brain and you're the only one who can help us," I breath out, gently releasing my grip on his shoulder. Why, oh why, does this remind me of some government sponsored commercial?

"Big O's dead?" he asks curtly, with which I nod my head. "He's got images in his brain?" he questions once more, nodding his head towards Sam.

"Symbols."

"Right. Meat locker, now!" He quickly directs us to a huge freezer filled with hanging animals. It felt nice to have a cold breeze tickle me, although, I could've dealt without the dead pigs touching me.

"What you're about to see is top secret. Do _not_ tell my mother." He crouches down and lifts a hidden latch.

"Got it chief," I chirp, saluting him. We step down into a relatively warmer room filled with towering stacks of papers and files. There's something in a small glass dome, Leo notices it, too. "I killed him. Pain in the aft," I told him as he marveled at the small Decepticon. "Tried to steal my life's work and nearly killed me twice."

"Backup! Still radioactive," Simmons says, pushing Leo's curious finger away from the display but accidently bumps the glass himself. I saw a small flash in the tiny Decepticon's optics. A flash no one else could see. I wasn't exactly sure what had happened but it gave me an eerie chill up my spine. Even though he was dead, I could still feel him watching me.

Simmons focuses our attention to a cluttered table where he lays out a bunch of paper.

"So do any of these look familiar to you cube-brain? Any symbols you saw?" he asks shoving picture upon picture towards Sam. I recognized a few of them. Strangely enough, I even knew a couple. "Good stuff, huh? Poached 'em from S-7 before I got fired. Says here that Transformers have been on Earth for quite a while." He gave us a picture of a lush wheat field that had a few glyphs carved into the dirt. "This one is one of the recent ones, happened around three years ago."

"Hey!" I gasp grabbing the picture from his hands. "This is my name!" They all look at me in shock. "Hmm? What? Oh you're wondering what my name is doing on the- oh, okay. Yeah, in Japan I was bored and thought, you know, why not?" Well, I feel stupid.

"Young lady, you're shenanigans cost us 8,000 dollars to investigate!" Simmons screams at me, hands ready to strangle my neck.

"And look where it's gotten you! You're now working for your mother in the same place you live in," I reason, shifting my legs to rest a hand on my hip. He considered it for a while and shrugged it off.

"Yeah, okay, so you're right. Whatever. Anyway, I pleaded with S-7 to investigate but they just told me I was obsessed. Me! Obsessed! What a joke, right?" He was beginning to scare me as his frame started looking more primitive and blood-thirsty.

"Uh-huh, okay. Well Megatron said there was another source of energon on Earth and that these symbols in my head would lead him there," Sam spits out, shuffling crazily through the photographs.

"Yeah, but these things are way before us. Like I said, Optimus was the only one who could read it. It predates us." I study Simmons emotions as I tell him our downfall.

"So it's before you?" he double checks, in case that for some reason he heard wrong.

"Yes, before us."

"Like, it _came_ before you?"

"Correct."

"Well, we're porked," he exhaled while flopping his arms in the air, but then he straightened up and stared at us. "Unless we can talk to a Decepticon. But, I'm not exactly on speaking terms with them."

"Actually, I am," Mikaela squeaks out.

"Surprise, surprise," Simmons mumbles out. I quickly slap the backside of his head. After hustling to the cars, we see her running down the ladder and plopping a squirming metal box in front of us.

"Be prepared," she whispers as a small Decepticon pops out of the box with a leash on it. "Hey! Behave!" she threatens.

"That's a Decepticon? And you're training him?" Simmons gapes his mouth open in awe. "I spent my whole adult life combing the planet for aliens and you have one in your purse like a dog."

"You want a throw-down pubic fro-head?" the minuscule 'Con barked. He quickly shifted his glare from Simmons to me. "Hey, if I'm not mistaken, that must be you, Nova," he purrs creepily. I shudder in disgust.

"Ew, it's _you_," I could feel nausea peeking out at the bottom of my throat. "Why, of all 'cons, are we stuck with you?" I put my hands up to the side and yell at the sky dramatically.

"Yeah, missed you too, sweetspark," he blew me a kiss.

"You know him?" Leo cracked out.

"Unfortunately." My previous adventures whilst I was temporarily a scout back on Cybertron was apparently a very social job. Apparently, when you're painted a shade of deep purple, Decepticons tend to trust you a little more.

"Who _don't _you know?" he slaps his forehead. Mikaela ignores us and looks deeply into Wheelie's eyes.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your eye, but if you're a good boy, I won't torch the other one mercilessly. Okay? I won't do it. Just tell us what these symbols mean," she spoke sweetly. I nudged her approvingly because that was one of the techniques I taught her. We saw Wheelie skate over towards the pictures and slowly realize what he was in the presence of.

"All right, what do we got here. Hey, I know this. It's the language of the Primes." I stared at everyone with an I-told-you-so look. "I don't read it, but these guys… Whoa, where the frick did you find these guys?"

"Is this they?" Sam asks, sounding stupid but in reality is as serious as you could get.

"Yep. Seekers, pal. Oldest of the old. They's lookin' for somethin' but no one tells me nothin' no more. I know where they is though," he said with a tone of authority.

"Ow, you're grammar. It hurts my ears," I mock, crushing any dignity he had left. "Just a joke, don't hate," I giggle, but drop the cheeriness gradually. "So can you show us where they are?"

"Anything for you sweets," he says sleazily.

"You know I'm pregnant, right? As in, I'm sort of taken." I choose my words carefully to avoid the topic of not exactly having a boyfriend anymore.

"He don't gotta know. You know my policy; anything for a pretty dame. Ain't that right Warrior Goddess?" He clicks his tongue and wiggles an eyebrow. So, so many bad memories popping up like a website filled with spam.

As he looks at a nearby map, I exaggerate my disgust by sticking my tongue out and wiping off his 'cooties' from my body.

"Looks like nearest one is in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Land of dreams. Always wanted to be an astronaut," Simmons sighs. Mikaela instantly gives me a look that says 'Behave! Don't say something mean! Don't you dare do it!' I try my best to hold in my insult, but my will power is too weak.

"Oh, but look where you are now," I mock instinctively. He looks hurt and Mikaela looks pissed. I mouth at her, _'I couldn't help it!'_ She rolls her eyes and puts on a defeated smile. We go upstairs, towards the cars and I'm the first out the door. I had a considerable lead because the others were probably still in the meat locker.

The first thing I see as I stepped out the door was Mizuki and Bee huddled in the far corner of the car… making-out. I give a small chuckle as I creep up next to Bee's wheel and apply a gentle kick. He looks up from his kiss and when he saw me, he drops his holoform accidentally and Mizuki, who smacked her head against the window because of the absence of Bee's chest. I couldn't help but laugh on the inside.

"Get ready to be mocked beyond your wildest dreams," I whisper to Bee's mirror. "Revenge is sweet."

On our way to the museum, we figured there were too many people to fit in Bee. So, naturally, I volunteered to sit inside Skids. And to my dismay, Leo was forced to go with me.

"Okay, look. Imma need some answers so-." I held a hand up at his face. He was _not_ starting the conversation like that.

"I'm an Autobot, you know, the robot aliens. Instead of changing into a vehicle, I change into a human. We're looking for something that the bad guys, A.K.A. Decepticons, specifically Megatron, wants but shouldn't have. The Fallen is a bad dude who…" I paused a bit as I had to swallow down my next words, "… killed Optimus. He was the only one who could stop him. As of now, we are looking for someone who can read the glyphs in Sam's head so we can find the energon source before Megatron." He ponders on what I have said and pieces the puzzle together.

"Okay, so what about the part where you-." I stop him again.

"Optimus was my boyfriend and we were supposed to raise my child together," I cough out coldly, trying so hard not to let the memory overtake my emotions.

"Was he, like, supposed to propose or whatever? Or is that an alien thing?" he asks with a big dollop of intrigued-ness. He was way to nosy for his own good.

"I-I don't know if he even wanted to," I turn my face away from his sight. He was about to speak up, but I didn't let him. Mood swing time! "Do you need me to repeat it, Curly-top? He died! He left without my permission! I wanted a family so he went ahead and killed himself to get out of it! It's all my fault! I never deserved any happiness that came from him!" I spat out aggressively. The fire in my spark burned barbarically as my tears shot out with aggravated pain. I scanned my surroundings looking for something sharp. Why? I honestly had no clue. A mix of loss and hormones pushed me to do the dangerous. I spotted the cracked cup holder and lunged my arm towards it, letting it slice my forearm smoothly.

"Oh my…! Blood- blood everywhere! I did not agree to this, yo!" Leo squealed like a little girl. He didn't do much to help, but Skids on the other hand stayed surprisingly calm. He silently retracted his cup holders and used the seat belt to strap me down firmly and to prevent from further lashes of crazy. The adrenaline finally dropped out and I could feel the cruel stinging in my arm. He shifted me to the seat behind me and put Leo in the driver's seat so he could steer Skids while he put his attention on me. The green car scanned my wound to sanitize it and popped out his holoform to wrap bandages around my arm.

"Nova, stay calm. I'm gon' fix you up real quick and then you gotta rest. I need to keep my attention on the road, okay?" His tone flowed like a tandem river, albeit his mismatched voice. I nod respectfully as I gaze into his dim blue optics. He kept eye-contact with me the entire time for me to calm down. I watched as his messy black hair flopped around in the wind. After wrapping my arm thoroughly, he connected our gaze once more, reaching two hands to behind my ears where a big pressure point was. "Are you sure youse gon' be okay?" he asks as if he was a parent looking after his child.

"I'm fine," I sniffle. "Thanks Skids. Never knew you could do that." I smile gratefully.

"Someone needed to be in charge. Ayo, Leo..." He turns to the quivering man who was peeking out from the head-rest. "If she freaks again, rub this part of her ear. Calms her real quick-like." He points to behind my ear as Leo nods vigorously. Skids' holoform disappears and I get gently moved up back to my spot in the front seat. Throughout the entire car-trip, I'd sniffle a bit and Leo would get a nervous look on his face, getting ready to calm me down when needed. I would just give him a feeble smile. The kid was growing on me, and I could tell I was growing on him as well. It was obvious that we both had some sort of respect building for each other, no matter how small it may be right now.

* * *

><p>When we reach the museum, the scent of humid air pangs my nose. The first thing I see as I pop out of the car is a beautiful view of Simmons' aft. I barf right on the spot.<p>

"What? I wear them when I'm in a funk," he explains simply, as if it's normal for people to see him wear such revealing underwear. "It's a baseball thing okay." He turns around and I hold back the urge to heave chunks again.

"Oh Primus! Pants, pants! Someone give this man some pants!" I yell, shielding my optics. I take a hesitant peek and am relieved when I see him fully clothed.

"Okay, you get caught, demand an attorney and don't say my name. Here's a pill, slip it under your tongue. Same stuff they put in Oreo's. Tricks the polygraph every time. Now, let's get this show on the road!" he says, directing us to our positions.

"Wait, wait! No, guys, I can't do this. I'm not an alien bounty hunter. I don't want to die!" Leo freaks out and gets shoved into Skids by Simmons.

"Kid! You compromise this mission, you are dead to me," he scolds, practically dry humping Leo. The display of 'affection' sickens me a little so I step up, scooting Simmons out of the way.

"Yo Leo. Do you see this?" I gesture to Bumblebee and the twins. "Do you see me standing in front of you? That means no matter where you are or what you do, a Decepticon is going to find you. Now it's your choice whether or not you want to live through that encounter. Look here Curly-top, _we_ are your_ only_ means of life."

He starts whimpering a little but nods shortly.

"You want to get married right? Meet a dame, have some kids? Stick with us and we'll get you there... hopefully." He snaps up to an averse attention and we all file into the museum, trudging to our positions. I was originally supposed to stick with Mikaela and Sam, but I remembered something. I strayed from my hiding spot and marched directly to the officer in the entrance. It's a good thing I wore something that made me look respectable.

"Excuse me ma'am, the museum's closing, so if you could-," he started but I politely put up a hand.

"I know. Please let me introduce myself, I'm Mrs. Simmons." I painfully materialize a do-whatever-I-want-and-get-away-with-it badge. Remember way long back ago when Simmons had one and showed it to us? I scanned it just in case I needed an escape route. "I have clearance here to check the aerial area." He takes a good, long look at my badge.

"I don't know. I mean, I didn't get heads up or anything," he says skeptically. My sweet and soft gaze turned into a harsh and fiery glare, although, I was still keeping a forced smile.

"Oh, of course!" I say sarcastically. "You have every right to doubt a woman with a legitimate badge. But you know, I could call your boss. So you can double check..." A look of worry flashed through his face. "Oh, don't worry if I'm going to disturb him. I won't, I promise. He wouldn't mind if his _older sister_ was calling." And that was the lie that got me in.

"Oh, no, no, no. You don't have to go through all that trouble," he sweated out. A nervous smile danced on his lips. "Go right on in. Stay as long as needed!"

"I plan to, honey," I mumble to myself. As I was walking, to where exactly I don't know, the rest of the gang joins me. "What took ya?"

"Tazered balls," Simmons and Leo say simultaneously.

"Got lost," Mikaela and Sam chirp right after them.

"Bee," Mizuki said blindly. Her eyes widened in what she just said and she looked at all of us to try to explain what she meant. "No, no, no. Not like that. I meant, I was-."

"Give it up Miz," Mikaela giggled out. Our brisk walking slowly morphed into a heart-pumping run as we neared the wing we needed to be in. I gave a silent gasp in awe. A penetrating scent of bleach and wax waved over me as I took in the vastness of all the aircraft dangling in front of me. The team splits up once again to find our desperately needed help. Mizuki and I start searching in a corner, letting my internal systems track down the Cybertronian. I get a forceful pull from my chest in one direction and I follow my lead. Apparently, Wheelie gets the same hint and we both reach a huge Blackbird.

"Found him!" we say simultaneously. An awkward glance is quickly passed among us as the rest finally catch up. I turn around to face them, but am accidently whacked in the head by some weird device Simmons is carrying around.

"Whoa! I know you hated me, but death is way out of the question!" I yell as his handheld tracker swings around my head.

"This guy's like the Chairman of the Board or somethin'. A real legend! Yo, kid! Point the shard!" Wheelie hollers at Sam. He gives Wheelie a sweaty nod and promptly directs the shard towards the jet. In that same moment, the ground below us trembles as the old mech wakes from his stasis lock. I see Mikaela dash under him to find a safe blind spot, but discovers something vital.

"Shit. It's a Decepticon!" she screams from her position. The heat from my body disappears entirely. Bonnie feels my agitation and stirs a little in my womb. I couldn't move; I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. Someone finally had to shove me behind a MiG to snap me back to my senses. "Wheelie!" she whispers sharply, letting some of her rage peek out. "You knew he was a Decepticon?"

"What? Warrior goddess, I swears I didn't know. Swears it on my life!" he returns sincerely. The aged Decepticon finally finished standing up to his full glory and we can all see that he did not age gracefully.

"What sort of mausoleum is this?" he spat bitterly. There was something familiar about him, but I know for a fact that I've never seen him before. Nevertheless, I could feel a tug at my spark. I knew him, but how? "Answer me, pawns and knaves! Show yourselves or suffer my infinite wrath! You spinal-cord based organisms!" he barked at the inanimate aircraft as well as us. He stood there waiting for something to happen but just grunted it off. "Bugger it!" We start to creep out from our hiding place and he starts to monologue again. "Behold the eternal glory of Jetfire!" That name rang a few bells in my head. I saw him take a short glance at me and surprise shortly ran across his face. He dropped the thought and began busting his way out into the open, with us following close on his tail.

"What do you want?" he grouched out as we tried to get his attention. Again, he stole a glance at me but turned his optics to Simmons.

"We just want to talk," he starts calmly but is easily waved away.

"I have no time to talk! I'm a mercenary doom-bringer. What planet am I on?" he hollers almost gracefully. Keyword; almost.

"Earth," Sam answers civilly. Jetfire had leaned in and took a better look at all of us. He stopped at me and I could tell he was contemplating on something.

"Miss, you don't happen to know someone who has the same colored optics as you?" he asks with a mixture of bitterness and soft-mannered curiosity. I shake my head and he looks taken aback. "If not, may I scan you? There is a familiar reading emanating from you." I spread my arms out, granting him access to observe. Shock visits him once more and decides to stay there. "You don't happen to know someone by the name of Nova, would you?"

"I-I am Nova," I stutter feebly.

"Poppy-cock!" he grunts, slamming his cane on the ground, forcing us to jump a little. "Nova is an Autobot! You, young miss, are an organic!" I step up towards him and lay a hand softly on the side of his helm. To save time and confusion, I download a memory into his system, the memory of me discovering techno-organic transformations. The memory felt like it was scraping up my scalp and dragging its torturous spikes throughout my arm. Bonnie, why must you make downloading information torturous for mommy? After it's been sent, I stagger back a bit and let him ponder on his discovery.

"You _are_ Nova," he mumbles to himself. His head turns sharply to face me once more. "Who are your parental units?"

"Um, Metallia and Copper Eye," I state briefly.

"So you don't know," he grumbles as his face comes closer to mine.

"Know what?" This question made him snap back and go berserk.

"'Know what?' she says! Miss, do you know nothing of your past? Do you know not of your own history? The tale behind your odd colored optics?" He stomps his foot and I gain more confusion. I heard Bee drive up behind me, getting ready to protect me when needed.

"I know everything about myself! I was hatched under Metallia and Copper Eye, sent to a well applauded academy, and raised as an Autobot to protect the peace and well-being of others!" I yell proudly. Bee nudged me gently in support.

"Lies! All of them! Metallia and Copper Eye are merely surrogates!" At the mere announcement of that I almost pass out. I rapidly become light-headed so I steady myself with a hand on Bee's hood. I could feel his shock too. Everything went quite. The air was stale with disbelief and realization. I finally broke the silence.

"I-I'm adopted?" My voice cracks while still trying to stay innocent. Bee stiffens up and I can tell he's trying to think of ways to calm me down. Jetfire affirms my question with a grunt. "How-how did you know? Who are my real parental units?"

"I am the great and almighty Jetfire! I know all!" he bellows to the heavens with a puffed chest. I give him a serious look and he slouches back down. "Actually, I know because, my dear... I am your father."

* * *

><p><em>I want to try to wrap this story up as quick as possible because I have a wonderful story coming up next and it takes place sort of in the middle of RotF and DotM. But I can't get to the awesomness unless I can get more reviews which tells me that you guys really really REALLY want to keep on reading. Or if you don't want to review, at least favorite or alert! It's just as good.<em>

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	7. Chapter 7

_ Awesome! A new chapter! I know all ya'lls excited so just read it! And review too please!_

**_Alter Ego: _**_Wait! Disclaimer! _

**_Me: _**_Fine! Hurry!_

**_Alter Ego:__ She doesn't own anything!_**

* * *

><p>"I've located the girl," Soundwave muttered huskily to his fellow Decepticons through their com-link. "What action shall I take?"<p>

"Pinpoint her last recorded position. I must follow her, Megatron has plans for this curious femme," Starscream recited bitterly, cringing at the fact that he is following Megatron's orders and not his own. "Don't lose her, use any form of contact you can."

"Acknowledge. Soundwave out," he says, focusing his energy on the last known location of Nova.

"What Megatron wants, he gets," Starscream growls with loathe.

* * *

><p>"B-but how can that be? I'm adopted and I've lived my entire life with surrogates? I don't even remember ever meeting you!" I take a deep breath before asking my last question. "Does that mean Bee isn't really my brother? My whole life has been a blind lie?"<p>

"Not a complete lie. Although he's not related by DNA, he still is the same mech you grew up with. And everything you've accomplished came from you, that could never be a lie," Jetfire answers. I give off a vibe of disorientation and he sits down with great impact and starts explaining.

"Well, you should at least know the whole story. It is, after all, _your_ story anyway. Now, if memory serves correctly, I was being prepped for new missions, still a Decepticon. On one of my missions, I was forced to monitor a slave. She was absolutely beautiful and had such a kind spirit, but was of course, was also an Autobot. With time, I grew to love her and she loved me back, and when the time was right, we escaped. We bonded and she was given a single hatchling. Things were starting to get suspicious around us, so I had to return to my squadron and was promptly sent over to this planet, which should be called Dirt by the way." His attention shifted to his surroundings as he put on a face of disgust. I snap my fingers so he would finally finish his story.

"Right, anyway. She, on the other hand, knew that you wouldn't be safe. Decepticons were searching for her everywhere and they would stop at nothing to get her, even if it meant having to kill you. She went looking for someone who could take care of you, someone trustworthy. She came upon a family who already had a small sparkling around your age and she observed them. After a while, she decided to let you live with that family, seeing as how they were responsible and whatnot. Erased your memory of us, she did. All of it, to make sure you lived your life contently. At the dead of night, you were placed near their doorstep and she waited with you, hiding from view, until someone picked you up. Shortly after you were accepted into this one's family," he gestured to Bee, "she was captured again. Tortured and killed."

He took a deep breath, reliving the horrid moment.

"That's why your optics sparkle a beautiful purple… You grew to be a wonderful 'Bot, so I've gathered. My only wish was to live my life with you and your femme creator." There was another silence, it wasn't awkward. It was filled with thoughts, ideas, and puzzle pieces being put together. A long while had passed before I delivered a cheerful sigh.

"If you want to be in my life, there's no better time than the present." I put on a bright smile and see his optics light up with joy.

"Those are wise words, you must've grown up with wonderful people," he says relatively calmly. Bee chirps up in affirmation.

"Only the best."

"Well since I am now regaining my position as your mech creator…" he starts as he grunts to get up, "… Who in the Pit got you pregnant? I must meet him; he has yet to earn my blessing!"

"Um, well…" I start looking around at my peers for help. They all shrug. _Thanks guys, real helpful._ "He's a-um, he's an Autobot?" I don't really know what to say. Jetfire grunts, whether in approval or disappointment, I don't know.

"At least he's a good guy, tell me the Autobots are winning," he begs stiffly. I shake my head.

"Unfortunately, we're at a bit of a withdrawal right now," I answer vaguely.

"Slaggit! Well, I changed sides!" he mutters to himself. "Too much negativity, I mean, who wants to live a life filled with hate?"

"Wait, so you don't have to work for those miserable, freakin' Decepticons?" Wheelie asks in shock. In the next second, he attaches himself to Mikaela and starts thrusting his pelvis onto her. "I'm changing sides. I'm changing sides, too, Warrior Godess. Who's your little Autobot? Name's Wheelie. Yeah, say my name. Say my name," he gasps with lust. The others stare awkwardly while I creep up next to her.

"Looks like you've got yourself a regular mech-zombie-slave," I whisper to her, with a few giggles escaping my lips.

"So this is how it feels," she looks at Wheelie's grateful actions. "It feels powerful."

"Welcome to the club."

"Can he just-just stop," Sam stumbles in disgust as he kicks Wheelie away. "Anyway," he turns to Jetfire, "What were you saying?"

"My name is Jetfire, so stop judging me!" he yells randomly as we all fall down from the force of his voice. "I have issues of my own. It started with my mother!" he grumbles on. "My father was a wheel. The first wheel! Do you know what he transformed into? NOTHING! But he did so with dignity, slaggit!" he had so much pent up rage that his parachutes enabled, forcing him to slam down on the ground. We ran up to him, somehow helping him get up.

"Hey, hey, hey. Okay, I think we can help each other," Sam says, trying to calm down the ancient dinosaur. "You know things I don't know; I know things you don't know. I do. There are symbols that I see." He draws a few in the sand for Jetfire to see. "They're vivid. But they're in my mind, my head. And Megatron wants whatever's in there. Him, and someone named The Fallen."

"The Fallen? I know him. Always apocalypse, chaos, and crisis with the fellow. Terrible to work for. These things you drew, they were part of my mission." A light bulb turned on in his head. "That's it! I remember now, Dagger's tip, and the key!" He picks me up and cups me in his servos. The others started getting worried, but I made a motion with my hands that told them to calm down.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Sam asks, stepping closer to Jetfire.

"No time to explain. Hold on, everybody! Stay still or you'll die," he hollers at us.

_Wait, what?_

In an instant, an electric blue light surrounded us, along with a loud popping noise. I was thrust sideways aggressively. It was a good thing I was cupped in Jetfire's palm; it gave me something to hold on to. I felt him flung out and crash on what sounded like rock.

"Well, that wasn't so bad. I just hope we're on the right planet." I knock on the inside of his servo so I could see what had just happened. The second he opened up a small crack, I was flooded with heat and small specks of sand.

"Whoa, that's a lot of sand," I say dumbly as I observe the desert we're in. I saw everybody else being spit out and dropped off in different locations, quite harshly if you ask me. Wheelie had appeared in front of us and nearly clipped my head off as he was shot in my direction.

"Hey! That freakin' hurt!" he screamed as he finally landed on the ground. I wasn't paying attention to his misery, I was too busy listening to an ear-piercing yell that could only come from Sam.

"Sam? Where are you? Bee? Mudflap, Skids! Guys?" I didn't get a response from them, but Simmons on the other hand answered frantically.

"Hey! I'm over here!" he yelled as I saw a few vague dots running towards us, my vision clouded by the bright light of the sun. Jetfire gently put me down and I ran to hug Mizuki and Mikaela.

"You guys okay?" I get some panting nods and I rush over to give Sam a hug, too. "Hey, your hand." I take a good look at a few messed up digits. "Burned from the sand?"

"Yeah, well…" he answers, biting his lip from the pain. Mikaela steps in to help him as I flip around and see Simmons and Leo. I was about to hug them but I stop mid-hug, as did they, and awkwardly just pat their shoulders.

"Um, good to see you guys are–ahem–okay," I stumble on my words. They utter a ditto in the same fashion. Simmons walks up on top of a rock and starts scolding Jetfire as best he can.

"That really, really hurt. You're just lucky I didn't get hurt. People could've gotten killed, okay?" he starts, but I stop him.

"Oh shut up. All he was trying to do was-,"

"Open a space bridge. I told you it was the fastest way to get to Egypt," he interrupted. Sam starts getting all fussy again.

"When did you… When did you tell us? You didn't tell us anything," he yelled, obviously very annoyed. "Why are we in Egypt?"

"Don't get snippy with me, fleshling! You were duly informed!" Jetfire yells back. I step between them and hold my arms out.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Guys! Chill, peace and love, 'kay?" I try calming them down and it works considerably. _Calming people down is easy. Why is it always so hard when others want to calm me down?_

"Okay, can you just tell us why we're in Egypt, so we can all have a little bit of semblance," Sam says with a deep breath. Simmons expresses his agreement with Sam by making a gesture that said 'You should listen to him'. Jetfire started explaining about how our ancestors hid something important here. I wasn't listening, something had preoccupied me. Bee and Mudflap were injured from their fall.

"How do you manage to screw yourselves up like that?" I ask as I take in the fact that Mudflap had disconnected his right servo and Bee had his vocal processor hanging out by a thread.

"Don't judge us, femme. Youse the one with a bandage over yo arm and a baby suffering inside youse," Mudflap complained. Bee looked at him shocked and made a chirp that resembled an 'Oh no you didn't'. I put on a sweet smile and grab his dislocated arm. I motioned him to come closer with a finger and he did. Bee knew what I was going to do so he took a noticeable step back.

"Bee, where you goin'?" Mudflap asked, making the mistake of turning his head. I activated a trigger on his arm to shoot a painful blast to his face. "Ahh! What was that for?" he yelled, clutching his precious face.

"_That _is for insulting my baby _and_ calling me accident prone," I say snootily as I cross my arms and stick my nose in the air. I kick a spot behind his shin armor which activates his reflex of bending down. He yelps in pain and I take the time he's down to shove his arm heartlessly up his socket and twist some wires which attaches it back to his body.

"Gah! Youse a devil, woman! Worse than friggin' Hatchet!" he screams as he rolls around in pain. Bee starts snickering, or at least tries to, until I lay my optics on him.

"Your turn," I say creepily. He gulps–how, I don't know–and slowly approaches me. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. You're my broth-," I catch myself and find that I'm stuck in an uncomfortable situation. I quickly plug his processor back in and step back, looking at him with misty eyes.

"I might not be your spark brother, but know that I'll always be there for you," he claims in our connected language. I hug his helm to the fullest extent.

"Thanks Bee. I'll be there for you, too," I nestle my head into his cheek. For some odd reason, I could feel his temperature in his face rise a little, almost as if he was… blushing. We join the others and pop in the conversation quietly.

"So how do we stop him?" Mikaela asks, not noticing our presence.

"Only a Prime can defeat the Fallen," Jetfire states regally.

"Optimus Prime," I blurt unconsciously.

"You've met a Prime? Why, you must have met a great descendant!" he comments in awe.

"I've done more than meet him…" I start, letting him put two and two together. He gives a small gasp as he finally figures it out.

"So you mean-?"

"Your future son-in-law is a Prime," I speak up with a mix of melancholy and pure irony in my tone.

"He's alive? On this planet?" Jetfire guesses hopefully.

"He sacrificed his life to save me," Sam conveys with a depressing tone. A swing in my mood kicked in and I fell to my knees, sobbing weakly into my palms. Jetfire leans down above me and scoops my pathetic body up.

"Don't fret, my dear. Your old man had to go through the same thing," he sighs. I look up at him and give his thumb a hug. He looks startled and confused at my display of affection.

"It's called a hug, get used to it because there will be a lot more where these come from," I giggle slightly, letting my tears slip away. I earn a content smile from my long lost daddy, but his smile rapidly morphs into concern.

"Without a Prime, no one can stop the Fallen." We all stay silent for a moment.

"So, the same energy that's going to reactivate the machine," Sam thinks out loud to himself. "Could that energy somehow be used Optimus?"

My entire frame picks up instantly. A cool wind filters my lungs and clears my negativity.

"It could work! That is an enormous energy source. Who knows what it could do?" I say, leaping down from Jetfire's lowered servo. "Sam, you're a genius! An awkward, hormone-driven, sweaty genius!" I yell as I hug him then quickly dry off the sweat and dirt that had rubbed onto me from contact.

"Thanks?" was all he could say as my words flustered his mind. "Well, wait," he addresses Jetfire, "how are you going to take us there?"

"Follow your mind, the map! Your symbols! What you see is your clue. When dawn alights the Dagger's Tip, Three Kings will reveal the doorway! Find the doorway!" he shouts at us, as if we were already supposed to know this. "My mission is now yours! Go, go!"

"Wait, what about you?" I ask, running over to him, "I just figure out you're my father and you're leaving? Just like that?" My voice sounded childlike and spark-torn.

"We'll reunite soon enough, my dear, but for now, you must go before the Decepticons find me and find you!" he yells shooing us away. I could feel his own spark tearing as I leave his side. We file into Bee while Mizuki and Leo find refuge in Mudflap.

Sam and Simmons mull over their little clue as we drive around, looking for a good lead.

"Dagger's Tip. Dagger's Tip. What's the tip? What is it?" Simmons mumbles to himself.

"Come on, tip of what? Tip of what?" Sam thinks out as well. I start cross-referencing my own data to help us out a little.

"Um, guys?" I squeak from behind their seats. They're still mumbling and pay no attention to me. "Yo! Boys! I got answers here!" I yell to snap them to attention.

"What?" they both glare at me.

"Hello! Ancient Sumerians called the Gulf of Aqaba 'Dagger's Tip'. It divides Egypt and Jordan like a blade," I motion with my hands what it would look like.

"So what are we going to do about it?" Simmons asks, eyes bugging out and all. I grab his GPS and find the coordinates for Dagger's Tip. I let them take a look at my discovery.

"Oohhhh," they both say.

"29.5 north, 34.88 east. That's where we need to be. Actually, that's where Optimus needs to be," Sam says, looking up at me.

"How we gonna do that, genius? That's halfway around the world," Simmons snaps.

"Phone call," we say casually.

"Who could you possibly call at a time like this?" he says with a shocking amount of disbelief.

"Um, hello? Robot," I gesture to all of me, then I gesture to all of Sam, "Kid who saved the world," then I gesture to Simmons, "And someone who _used_ to be helpful."

"You got a real smart mouth, young lady. If you weren't so foxy, and pregnant, I would've liked to smack the hell out of you," he grumbles at me, stealing a glance at my chest.

"No wonder you're single," I say in disgust.

"Hold up guys, we got cops," Sam breaks up our bickering as three cop cars head towards us.

"Drive casually, Honeybee, don't raise suspicion," I whisper impatiently. Wouldn't you know it, he goes ahead and raises suspicion. As soon as the cops near us, he swerves sharply out of the way, forcing the twins to do the same. "Slaggit Bee!" I scold as I turn to observe those behind us. I could see Leo hyperventilating and Mizuki looking crept out by him. "Okay, we have to disappear, and fast. Get off the road and lay low." Bee drives accordingly. We enter the streets and quickly duck into a small alleyway.

"Stupid cops," Skids whispers as he's being hung upside down on top of a building by Bumblebee.

"Nice hiding place," I comment sarcastically. Bee gives me a wink.

"Don't hate. This is what's called blending in like a ninja," Mudflap answers defiantly.

"Shut up or I'll blend my fist in your face," Skids argues quietly with his brother.

"Both of you shut up before I blend your afts together," I solve. We can see the cops leaving and Mikaela tells us that it's clear.

"Okay, time is running out, I gotta call Lennox-," I stop Sam from reaching the phone.

"Whoa, whoa. Sweetie, love you as I might, if you make that call, the CIA will track you faster than I can squish a bug." My hand drops from its previous place on his chest.

"So how do you suppose we get your boyfriend down here?" Sam looks annoyed.

"He calls," I turn to Simmons.

"Oh yeah, I didn't think of that. Just distracted 'cause I didn't want to end up in Egyptian prison," Simmons verbalizes as he reaches for the phone. While we're waiting, I walk up to Mizuki.

"Hey, you got any tape or string or something?" I ask randomly.

"Actually, I saw some duct tape lying around those boxes, why?"

"Oh, nothing," I obviously lie. She gives me a confused look but I shrug it off. "Honeybee!" I whisper and motion him to come down from his hiding place on the roof. I raise my arms up, in a gesture that says 'I want to get up'. "Lemme see your vocal processor," he opens it up and I begin taping things together skillfully. "Perfecto. This should hold up a bit, try not to do anything rigorous and it'll be fine," he nods and I look deep into his optics, getting ready to barrage him with a few questions. "How are you and Mizuki doing? Establish anything yet?"

"And I should tell you why?" he whirs in our language.

"Oh, nothing. Considering the fact that I'm no longer your sister and I just thought that if you could confide in me something a bit personal then I might feel better about myself," I say, pretending to cry. He just rolls his optics at me.

"Really? The guilt thing? We've known each other our whole lives and we know each others' secrets. I think that qualifies enough to make us siblings in a metaphorical sense."

"So you just admitted that you can, and will, tell me everything?" I straighten up and fold my hands together.

"Ugh, fine. If it makes you happy," he mocks sarcastically, "I think it's safe to say that we are dating." I jump around a little in his palm out of pure joy.

"Aww, how cute! My little baby half-brother is growing up. It feels like only yesterday, I had to wash you up, and now I have to guide you through your first real relationship."

"Great, I knew this would happen. You _would_ have to make such a big deal out of this," he smirked.

"Hey, my boy-toy died. I need _some_ sort of love in my life," I signaled him to put me down and for some reason, I think he was looking at me with an expression of longing. I couldn't really tell because I heard Simmons drop the phone out of its box and I saw Leo running up to us in a woman's get-up.

"Guys, the cops are coming. We gotta move!" he whispers madly, and we execute his directions promptly. Sam and I sit up front whereas the others squeeze in the back.

"Okay, let's go over this…" Simmons starts.

"When the dawn alights the Dagger's Tip, three kings will reveal the doorway," they recite in chorus.

"That's what he said. You know what it means? How 'bout you, sweetie? Any ideas up in that hard drive of yours?" Simmons asks.

"I got one. How 'bout you stick your aft back in your seat before these guards give us a ticket," I growl angrily. "Anyone got their passports?" We reach the checkpoint as someone steps down and inspects us.

"Crap, they got cameras up top," Sam mumbles to me. My optics widen as I grab his entire face and pull it back in the car. Somehow I manage to switch places with him quite easily.

"Are you crazy? They're looking everywhere for you! Rule number one as a refuge, don't get caught… by anything!" I whisper as the guard comes closer. My ears pick up a soft click and I dart my attention to the camera. It made that small flash that the Decepticon from the deli did. _What the Pit is that for?_ I motion for the guard to come over to my side of the car and finally realize how tall he actually was.

"Great, a fricking Munchkin. Little people are mean, tell him he's tall," Wheelie speaks up from behind me.

"Get back, I'll handle this," I say, shoving him away. "Hello," I start fluently in their language, "we're visiting from America." I show him Simmons' copied badge. I heard Simmons gasp a little from the back in recognition of his old badge. "We need to go to Jordan."

"Yes, of course. Right this way," he says emotionlessly.

"Hey, I think I've seen you somewhere before. Have you ever thought about joining the film career?" I try to sweet talk him a little. A smile erupts on his face.

"Actually, I did do a movie back in 2005. I was an Oompa Loompa. Have you ever heard of it?"

"You know, I think I did. No wonder you look so camera ready, you really need to star in more films," I say, tapping his shoulder lightly.

"I'm in the middle of making a new one. It'll be in America, I hope you have time to see it," he puffs out his chest with pride.

"Will do, chief," I trail off as we pass the bar.

"What was that all about?" Simmons asks me, poking his face on my shoulder rest.

"I was talking about his new movie. Did you know he was in Willy Wonka? Small world, huh?" I express with amazement.

"That's not what I meant. I was talking about my badge, where did you get my badge?" he was getting impatient.

"Oh, you mean your do-what-I-want-and-get-away-with-it badge? I scanned it when you showed it to us a few years ago. Used it when I wanted special privileges. Can you believe that I don't get anything fancy even though I'm an advanced alien species in the army?" Simmons just glared at me, pursing his lips together.

"You scanned his badge?" Sam half chuckles out. "Awesome." He gives me a high-five. After a few minutes or so, we reach some sort of abandoned temple type thingy. One quick scan of the broken down building was enough for my mood to go sour.

"Why do we always have to be somewhere that's broken down?" I whine, "Can't we ever. Like, stay in a hotel or something?"

"It's called undercover, yo. You gotta blend in with your surroundings," Skids says, moving as stealthily as he can. "Gotta be part of the landscape." He accidently bumps into Bee's leg, despite his 'ninja-like' moves.

"Oh yeah, you're blending in, all right. You look just like the dirt," I say sarcastically.

"Meanie," he says as he picks himself up.

"Aw, don't be like that. You know I love you…" his head picks up and he stares at me hopefully, "… as much as a friend could." He drops his head.

"I have a better chance than you," I hear Bee mumble to Skids. I could tell that I wasn't supposed to hear that. We enter the building and I'm guessing this is our lodgings for the night.

"'Kay guys. Low profile, try not to make a scene," I see Mudflap and Skids run into each other and land with a soft thud. "Just-please, try. Like, _really_ try." I couldn't stress the importance of that enough but I had already entered the temple.

"Yeah, some of us got work to do! Dumb Autobots," Wheelie grumbles.

"You know, you're an Autobot now," I explain, wanting to see what he would reply.

"And does that make me look more irresistible, sweetspark?"

"Ew, forget I mentioned it." I step away from the perverted ex-'Con and walk over to Mikaela. "I know you're dilemma," I confess randomly.

"Oh really?"

"Of course, you're my best friend. I know everything…" I look at her for a while, expecting some sort of story from her, "…Okay, fine, I know nothing. Tell me, tell me, tell me! Something is wrong and I can feel it."

"Sam hasn't told me he loves me yet," she sighs. I grip her hands.

"What? Really? That's really- oh, I want to use a better word but- douchey," I say, making her laugh a little.

"Well, actually, he kind of wants me to say it first. Something about keeping me with him longer," she flashes a wide smile.

"Then say it first. If you don't want to, then the best you can do is guilt him into it, but that usually doesn't give people the correct satisfaction," I drop my grip and place a hand on her back, pushing her closer to Sam. "Go, go and make dreams happen."

* * *

><p>A few hours pass and it's already nightfall. I couldn't sleep at all, but I felt completely drained of any energy I had. Instead of wasting it on tossing around on a dusty old couch, I get up and search for someone to talk to. I go outside and spot two cars.<p>

"Hey, where's Bee?"

"Where do ya think?" Mudflap answers.

"Sigh, puppy love," I say sarcastically.

"You couldn't sleep neither?" Skids asks.

"How could I? It's steaming hot in there, you guys got it good. Nice breeze," I inhale the cool Egyptian air and let it filter my lungs. I walk up and lean on Mudflap's bumper. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all, milady" he enunciates.

"So, why you guys up?"

"Actually, we was just talkin' 'bout Bee," he answers.

"Yeah, and how he always be lookin' guilty an' all near Miz," Skids finishes.

"Guilty? Why? What did he do?" I ask, doing my best to look at both twins.

"That's what we wants to know. Somethin's up with that mech an' we gon' do whatever it takes to squeeze the blackmail outta him," he retorts.

"It started 'round the time he found out you was adopted," Mudflap adds on. My mind freezes a little and I feel myself biting back tears.

"So you think he doesn't want to be my brother anymore? Maybe he feels guilty because he didn't figure it out sooner and is confused as I am about this," I spit out.

"Nova, you gots to stop hatin' on yo'self," he says, popping out his holoform next to me and laying a hand on my shoulder. Skids does the same on my opposite side.

"Seriously, it ain't healthy fo' yo baby," Skids reasons.

"Sorry, I guess I get a little accuse-y when I'm pregnant. I've been blaming everything that's wrong on me, lately," I say with a small chuckle. "I just can't wait until I finally get to meet my little Bon-Bon. I just hope Optimus would be alive at the time."

"All good things come to those who are pregnant," Skids chirps up at an attempt to cheer me up.

"You know that the phrase is actually- you know what, never mind," I laugh out softly. "You guys picked some really good holoforms," I change the subject as I notice how fitting their holoforms are. Both had messy black hair and were tall. They had a 'street' look to them.

"You know how we roll. Swagger to the max, fool. Complete with saggy jeans and revealed boxers," Mudflap says.

"How you got Ratchet to agree to that, I will never know," I lean my head back on Mudflap's alt. form as I trace the stars with my imagination.

"We didn't. We asked Sides to help us out. Cracked Hatchet's security in 10 minutes," he says proudly.

"That's a new record," I say in surprise, "Can't wait to see how you guys are going to mess Ratchet's life up more when Sunny gets here."

"You know he hates it when you call him that," Skids nudges me slightly.

"I don't care, what's he going to do? Hit me? I'd like to see him try. I'm going to crack his shell, believe me. Just like I did with Ironhide," I trail off a little as everyone runs outside and Sam points at something in the sky. I had just noticed that it had changed into a lighter tone. _How long was I out here?_

"Both the pyramids and the stars point due east, towards Jordan. The mountains of Petra," I hear Simmons say before we're all running back to the cars.

"What happened?" I ask Mikaela.

"They found where the energon source might be."

* * *

><p><em>That's all folks! We're nearing the end of le story. Stay tuned 'cause the next story will be better, I promise. It's not about DotM, it's more in the middle. It's a real emotional roller coaster. Review and also tell me if you guys want any specific (or nonspecific) one shots. Don't be afraids!<em>

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


	8. Chapter 8

_ You guys are welcome! Two chapters in one day! I know they're kinda skippy, but, like I said, I want to get started on the new story already! So here is the last chapter._

**_Alter Ego#3: _**_I hate it._

**_Me: _**_You haven't even read it._

**_Alter Ego#3: _**_I know._

**_Me:_**_ Grr. Whatever! **I don't own anything! **Unless one of my readers works for Hasbro or Universal Studios or Dreamworks and wants to give me a job with developing stories and such!_

* * *

><p>"Megatron, we have located the girl once more. What action shall we take?" a gruff Soundwave relays to his leader.<p>

"None yet, we must have patience. If this plan succeeds, she may live… like a pet on a leash. If our plan fails, she will become very important," he answers, contemplating on his options and what scenarios they may lead to.

"I cannot keep track of her forever!" Soundwave barks impatiently.

"If you want to live, you will!" their leader responds.

* * *

><p>"It's not here!" Leo exclaims with his hands clutching his hair. "We trusted Grandpa Blackbird who, mind you, didn't even know what planet he was on!"<p>

"Hey! Don't be like that, in his defense, this is the biggest doorway I've ever seen," Simmons replies while taking in all of the sanctuary we were at. They said this is where the energon source was and I could feel it, too. I just couldn't tell where it was.

"All right, well, I'll do a quick search then," Leo spins around once. "Nope, nothing here!"

"Hey! It's here, okay-," I was cut off by Simmons who was also annoyed by Leo's lack of spirit.

"Real life is despair, kid. Sometimes, you get to the end of the rainbow and the leprechauns went and booby-trapped it!" he barks.

"Ugh! You guys are useless!" I yell as I throw my hands in the air. "If only I had my gloves with me, I'd be able to find it. I should stop taking them off," I confide silently to Mizuki.

"Oh, your gloves? It's in Bee's glove box," she says absently.

"Of all the places, why are my gloves in his glove box?" I just realized how stupid that sounded. "Never mind." I walk up to Bee, slightly kicking up my heels. "Bee, Bee, Bee, Bee, Bee!" I shout rapidly as I near him. "Are my gloves in your glove compartment?"

"Oh yeah. Found 'em there last night. Mizuki accidently kicked it open while we were—ahem, I mean, here you go," he said bashfully, as he handed me my gloves. I slipped them on, the feeling of comfort growing back on me. It glowed as usual, but not as brightly. It must be low on juice.

"Well, that's not going to help us," I mutter to myself. I look up and hear the twins fighting again.

"He didn't do a very good job of killing Megatron, 'cause, well, he still alive," Mudflap argues.

"What? You scared?" Skids returns.

"Scared of your ugly face!" Mudflap starts crowding in on his brother.

"I'm ugly? We're twins, you stupid genius!" _Stupid genius?_

"Yo! Both y'all ugly, stupid geniuses! Now, shut up and help us find the fragging Matrix already before we all die!" I yell, reeling back from the force in my speech. I immediately pick up that my grammar had changed and made a mental note to stop hanging out with the twins… and Wheelie. Speaking of, they weren't listening to me because I saw Skids fling Mudflap into a wall which crumbled and revealed something behind it. In an instant, my gloves became attracted to whatever was behind the wall and I was pulled towards it, my hands sticking to the cracks. Sam came over and took some plates off. I did my best to restrain my hands.

"The symbols," he whispered to himself. "Bumblebee, shoot it!" Everyone took a step away as the hole turned into a small cave. We all entered, awe-struck. The Primes were all there, except for one of course. It was so complex, seeing how every Prime fit in with each other, leaving no gaps between the outside. My optics darted from every mech and femme, recalling names and seeing faces I've only seen in pictures. I finally landed in the center of the tomb, where the Matrix laid. It glistened ever so gracefully. Sam was about to touch it and my reflexes acted up.

"Wait, Sam don't!" I tried to push his hand out of the way, but ended up touching the Matrix myself. It felt odd, it started as a piercing feeling that started at my finger tips but it quickly turned into a soothing, cold liquid sensation. I felt it travel throughout my entire body and finally rest inside my womb. Bonnie started glowing and it felt as if a million tiny spikes exploded inside of me and painfully retracted itself. While this was happening, I leant into Simmons' arms, with my head getting lighter. I also noticed that my arm had completely healed.

"What happened?" Sam asked. I shook my head to tell him I was fine, but then he went back over to grab the Matrix.

"Sam, don't… touch the Matrix." I drooped slightly because it was already too late. The Matrix had crumbled into dust. "What, did you do?" I whispered, on the verge of strangling him. I had every right to do so, too. I mean, he just killed the last chance I ever had to see Optimus again. Sam knew I was feeling kind of stab-y so he hid behind Mikaela.

"I didn't mean to do it!" he sounded like a kid. I released my need to get revenge and just fell to my knees, forcing my tears to stay inside my head. Simmons knelt down beside me and rubbed my back.

"Thousands of years, and it turned to dust," he said, melancholy throughout his words.

"But, this isn't how it's supposed to end," Sam quivered. We heard a few jets passing by.

"Hear that? C-17's! Military's here!" Simmons exclaims as he ran outside.

"They're a bit too late," I sniffle as I stand straight and put on a face of determination.

"You can't bring him back, there's nothing left," Mikaela whispers calmly. _How could she give up so easily? Lives are at stake, hearts can and will be broken._

"No, we didn't go through this for no reason, not so it could end up like this! There's a reason we're here, a reason there are symbols in my head. The voices led me here on purpose and everyone's after me because of what I know. And what I know is that this is going to work," he starts scooping up the dust hastily into his sock.

"How do you know it's going to work?" she asks, curiosity getting the best of her.

"Because I believe it." That's all he had to say for me to give him a well needed hug. "What was that for?" he asks with a smile.

"For never giving up. You're a good kid, Witwicky. I owe you too much already. You don't know how much it means to me that at least one person has so much optimism. So much to achieve," I falter a bit as tears of joy start creeping onto my face. _Stupid hormones._

"Thanks, but, I owe all that optimism to you. I remember the first time I met you in that dinky little electronics store. You were always the one with something to live for, something for tomorrow to bring."

"Never forget me, Witwicky. Someone is going to need something positive in their life one day and you're going to have to give it without me. Just remember, attitude is everything." I let go and flick my misty optics from both his eyes. "Let's go bring Optimus back from the dead."

We head outside and I see a mix of Autobots and people diving out of the planes.

"Think you can bring back Big O with that pixie dust?" Simmons asks, half mocking.

"Absolutely," he answers, never stopping his bee-line to the cars. We drive close to where we last saw them drop and see the flare popping, just for us.

"That's them right over there!" Simmons exclaims. I wasn't paying attention to where he was pointing. I was paying attention to a familiar looking jet in the sky. And that jet was launching missiles right at us. That's when Leo started freaking out.

"Oh God, please, God! Please!" Everyone else let out a groan. "Please, just let me live, just let me-," he was cut off from Simmons tazing him in the neck.

"You did better than what I was going to do," I say evilly as I turn around to inspect the passed out teen. There were more missiles that came and we narrowly dodged each one. We hid in the dust and got out to think of a strategy.

"All right, we need to split up. Bumblebee, Mizuki, you're the decoys," Sam barks orders. "You lead the Decepticons away and we get Optimus."

"I'll help draw their fire with Huey and Dewey there," Simmons says solemnly, completely aware that he's going on a suicide mission. "I hope that dust works, kid." We start walking our separate ways, but I stop.

"Wait!" I say, not ready to let Simmons go just yet. Sometime between two years ago and now, I started respecting him a little. "Simmons, before you go," I stepped up to him and rested two hands on his shoulders, using that as a pivot point. Suddenly, I find myself of the tips of my toes, planting a soft kiss that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. _I should really think before I act._

"Whoa, Big O's lucky to have that every day," he said as I stepped back. I was trying so hard not to barf up chunks. "Why'd you do that?"

"Simmons, I've gained respect for you. You've become family. Also, you're going on a suicide mission and I figured you haven't kissed anyone yet so I thought, why not give you one, just in case you... you know. Don't worry, I'm older than I look."

"You're 22," he says, trying to stump my words.

"At heart," I respond devilishly. "Mind you, I am an advanced alien robot."

"H-hey! What about me? I'm going on this death-wish with him, don't I get something?" Leo asks, stepping up.

"No, you're still young, you've got time."

"What?" He starts muttering angrily in Spanish before he faces me again. "F-fine. At least answer me one question though." I nod my head. "Why do you keep calling me Curly-top?" I smile a little and get closer to him.

"I call you Curly-top because your hair is curly," I say smugly, but then I lean in and whisper in his ear. "It also happens to be a very sweet chocolate which I admit I'm kind of obsessed with." I give him a quick kiss on the cheek and go back with Mikaela and Sam. Everyone can see him blushing like crazy. "All right, let's do this," I say, leading the way, but Sam stops me.

"No, Nova you can't. If you haven't noticed, you're, like, almost 9 months pregnant. You need to get to Ratchet or something."

"Sam, if you couldn't tell, I've been kicking aft all 9 months I've had this child. Unfortunately, I have to risk my life a little, especially because wherever you're going, that's where I'll be safe," I say, staring at both of them.

"Fine, but you stay out of trouble," he says after a while, pointing a finger at me.

"Yes, Dad," I mock. We run towards our checkpoint. I put a small energon bubble around Bonnie, in case she decides to do some gymnastics in there. "There it is," I point as I see more flares.

"Got a couple miles," Sam explains.

"Oh, Primus." We finally reach a part of the town. The energon bubble is working wonders. It makes running easy again. "Guys, in here," I whisper, motioning them to get into a small house because there were Decepticons outside.

"Okay, once it's clear, we make a run for Optimus as fast as we can, right?" he asks us quietly.

"What if it won't work?" Mikaela retorts, on the verge of crying.

"It will," Sam backs up.

"I know, but what if-."

"It's going to work," I tell her sternly with a nod. We hear a Decepticon's footsteps right outside our little hut and Mikaela grips my hand as she puts another one on her mouth. I tighten my hold on her, sharing our fears as I close my optics tightly, wishing so much for this to be over. I hear Sam poke a sword out of the wall to see what's happening. He just points upwards, I'm guessing that means someone's above us. A small, mosquito-like Insecticon enters our premises and Sam grabs it, getting ready to squish the life out of it. I focus my optics on it and realize that it will signal a nearby Decepticon as soon as it's offlined. I start shaking my head but Sam had already pulled its head off. The second I heard the whir die down, Starscream rips the roof off of our hiding spot.

"You!" he screeches at me. His arm lunged towards me and successfully latched on. They try to grab me but to no avail.

"Sam! Leave! I'll be fine. I can handle it, leave!" I yelled at him as he hesitated to move. Starscream tried to grab them once more but was to slow. "What do you want from me, you stale corn chip?"

"My master needs you as a back-up, traitor," he barks at me. _Traitor? What does he mean?_ He flies me towards the pyramid Megatron was on but I blasted his face with a quick shot of energon. This makes him stray off of his original course. I see Bumblebee fighting a Decepticon, Rampage to be exact, below me and I quickly do my best to lose some altitude.

"Tell Megatron to pop this in his juice box and suck it!" I yell as I cut some wires in the hand he was carrying me with. He tries to catch me but I keep shooting at him. Just before I hit the ground, I blast it so it would give me some momentum to flip over and land on my feet. I learned that trick from Ironhide. There's no time wasted as I sprint towards the fight.

"Sam, Sam," I whisper as I come up behind him.

"How'd you escape?" he asks, checking me for bruises and scrapes.

"I told you I could handle it," I give him a wink and turn my attention back to the fight. I spot two people on the other side of the scuffle. "When did your parents get here?"

"Long story. It looks like Bee's winning," he points as Bee dislocates both arms off of Rampage brutally. He was so engulfed with his current fight, that he didn't notice a sneaky Ravage creeping up on him. I did though.

"Bee!" I yelled as I stopped the mecha-cat from jumping closer to him by grabbing his tail. Bumblebee turned around at the sound of my voice and immediately caught on to my plan. He grabbed Ravage by the chassis as I clutched onto the tail for dear life. We managed to rip the grotesque creature in two. "Oh, ew. Yuck, yuck," I muttered as some of the goo from Ravage dripped onto me.

Rampage was hot on Bee's heels so I ran up into the middle of them and did the best I could to fend him off. I turned my weapon into a blade and began slashing about on the surface of his armor. His right optic fell out as well as a chunk of chest armor. These actions gave Bee enough time to pounce onto him and deliver the final blow.

_We make a good team… _he said through his radio.

"Forever and always," I add on as I catch up with the others. They were in the middle of an argument and, of course, Judy is the first to notice me.

"Why is she pregnant?" she asks obnoxiously. "And why are you letting her fight?"

"Judy, that's not important right now!" Ron says grumpily, but then turns quickly to me in realization of his mistake. "Not that your baby's not important, it's just we can't let you kids risk your lives _again_! Look, this isn't up for discussion, you're my son! My son! We going home together!"

"I can't. You have to get in Bumblebee and he'll lead you to safety. I'll find you," Sam states, pleading desperately with his eyes.

"No, no. I can't," Ron starts, looking to his wife for back up.

"You gotta let him go. Ron, you need to let him go," she emphasizes. He purses his lips as he looks from her to Sam.

"You come back, you hear me? You come back!" he grumbles, forcefully shaking his son by the shoulder.

"Okay, Nova, Mikaela. Go with my parents."

"No, we're not leaving you. We've been through too much Witwicky," I say. He looks at me like I'm crazy.

"You're pregnant! You can't fight!"

"Then at least get me to Optimus!" I yell at his face. A moment of silence occurs, "Sam, please. If not for me, do it for Bonnie. Ratchet is going to be there and you know how much we need his medical attention."

"It's a risk. One wrong move, and both of you are gone," he eyes me a little.

"Sam, I'm a soldier. When have I ever lived a moment of my life without considering that? And look how far I've come, how long I've cheated death. I'm going with you," I stiffen up and look to Mikaela for some help. She puts a hand on his shoulder.

"She needs our help," she whispers. Sam nods and we turn to head over to the soldiers, but not before Bee's holoforms stops me. He grabs my arms and forces me into a soft and quick kiss.

"I just needed to do that, just once," his voice statics and he disappears, running off with the Witwicky's. He's lucky Mizuki didn't see that. _Where is she, anyway?_ I didn't have time to find out because Mikaela starts dragging me into a run.

"Why did he kiss me? And what did he mean he had to do that, just once?" I huff as we pick up the pace.

"I was going to ask _you_ that. You know, for a pregnant woman, you've been cheating a lot," she jokes a little.

"Those kisses don't count. They were given from the adrenaline, not because I fell in love with them," I reason. She just scoffs and rolls her eyes playfully.

"You're gloves are charged?" she asks, noticing how they were glowing brightly.

"I guess, must've been from when I touched the Matrix."

"Why didn't it crumble when you touched it?"

"Gloves?" I really didn't know why. We reached a small hallway type place and saw Ironhide and the sisters fighting.

"Follow us to the pillars, we'll lead you to-," I cut Elita-1 off and jump onto her shoulder to deflect the shot that could've cost her a life. "What was-?"

"No time, get behind that car!" I bark at her and she follows without hesitation.

"Arcee! Duck!" I yell as I send an energon blade into one of the Decepticons attacking them. It successfully cuts his head clean off.

"Sam! Get to the pillars!" Ironhide hollers as they go back to fighting the rest of the 'Cons. Elita-1 puts me down to follow the rest of them. We get closer to the main action and every now and then, I would put up a small shield to deflect the bullets and explosions from getting to us. The second our group reaches the soldiers' range of sight, someone spots us. We get waved over to Lennox and Epps just as millions of gun shots are fired right behind us. A few soldiers make their way towards us and we dive down behind the ruins of a building.

"You kids better have a good reason for us to be here," Lennox mumbles while reloading his gun.

"We brought you the toughest Decepticons here, didn't we? When they're trying to kill you, you know that we have a good reason," I say with a smile.

"Where's Optimus?" Sam asks, scanning the place for a big heap of metal.

"Over there, across the courtyard," he points. My spark does somersaults as I mix my emotions with his presence.

"We need to get there, now," I start running off, but Epps pulls me down. I was about to fight back but I understand why he pushed me up against the wall. Mixmaster is hovering right above us, firing at the humans and whatnot. I was about to blast a ball of fury into his chin, but a familiar voice enters my audio processor.

"Stick the landing! Oof," I hear as the old coot fumbles and makes his way casually over to Mixmaster. "Behold the glory of Jetfire! Now let me show you how we brought the pain in my day," he calls as he slices the Decepticon in half and steps on him, popping his head off. Scorponok appears and manages to knock him down. Jetfire easily throws him off and smashes his head in, all the while he's falling down. "I'm getting too old for this crap."

"You good, Pappy?" I say, yelling down at him.

"As I'll ever be. Keep going, my dear. Fight 'til the bitter end!" he offers his advice.

"As long as you do the same," I smirk as I hop down the wall I propped myself on top of.

"Forever and always," he mutters as I rejoin the team. _Mental note: Make 'Forever and always' the new family slogan. Primus, but I am a cheesy femme._

"All right, you guys stick with me! Stay on my ass," Lennox could've used better words.

"You gonna give him a goodbye kiss, too?" Mikaela teases.

"Shut up, Optimus is, like, right there!" I scold silently. I see F-16's hovering close to us and start panicking a little. "Um, Epps? What did you tell them to aim for?"

"The orange smoke," he says casually. Lennox face palms.

"You mean that orange smoke?" he gestures to the dust cloud enveloping us.

"It's an off day for me, okay," Epps puts his hands up, telling Lennox to back down.

"Oh, Robert," I sigh, "what will we ever do with you?"

"How 'bout save the world?" he says with a small hint of anger.

"Good enough." I hear the signal that the F-16's are going to drop the missiles and we run for our lives. Epps picks me up bridal style and I'm surprised at how strong he managed to be. "Bless, you Epps. Bless you!" I say, relieved that I didn't have to dash all the way there. I see Sam straying off course just as the missiles drop on us. "Sam! No!" I yell as Epps finally lays me down at a safe spot. Megatron appears out of nowhere and starts shooting at Sam. He misses but manages to blast Sam up from the feet, where he fell unconscious. Megatron retreats at the force of all the weapons being aimed at him. A medical team rushes to Sam's side, as well as Lennox and Mikaela. I try to make my way over as well but am carried off by another medical official to Ratchet.

"Stay still, Nova. The humans will help him. Right now, I need to check on you. Why did you even come here?" he scolds softly. I start tearing up and follow his orders. He scans me and then starts poking around me. I feel his laser disinfecting any scratches or bruises I had. He gave Bonnie a thorough scan and looks a bit perplexed. "That's odd."

"What? What happened?"

"There's a strange energy reading coming from her. It's not harmful, and the both of you are fine nonetheless," he says, leading me to a safer place. I see Sam's parents running over to him and being tackled by soldiers to keep from getting closer. Bee comes up as well and drops to his knees in realization that his best friend is probably gone. Everyone is devoting all their attention to Sam. Something strange is happening with him, I could feel it. I was about to step into an ambulance to be escorted home, but I saw something glisten next to him.

"The Matrix," I whisper to myself. I jump out of the back of the ambulance, defying the requests of multiple medical personnel, including Ratchet. I see Sam get up and I meet him at Optimus' body. "Do it Sam!" I yell up at him. He gives me a meaningful nod and stabs the big mech with the Matrix. A shudder traveled through Optimus' body before he violently began cycling his vents, 'waking himself' as it were. He gave a cough of dust as he began to sit up. My entire form began lifting up with pure joy as I saw his familiar face.

"You've returned for me," he said, sentimentally as he kneeled down to look at us. A tear escaped my optic as I started smiling. I heard Jetfire behind me, exclaiming in joy as he finally saw the hope of this planet return to life. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw something head for us. It traveled through a space bridge towards Optimus and he stepped on him, ejecting the Matrix out of its rightful spot.

"No!" I yelled out as I ran over to inspect the still weak Prime. "Get up, Prime! Get up!" I did the best I could to help lift some of him up. "Babe, he's turning on the machine. Come on!"

"Nova," Jetfire spoke up from behind me. "Let me handle this. All my Decepticon life, I haven't done a thing worth doing 'til now," he turns to Optimus. "Take my parts. You will have a power like no other."

"Wait! I've already lost someone important in my life once, I'm not going through that again!" I yell at Jetfire. "Ratchet! Fix him!" I bark and point to my collapsing father, he does as he's told and I turn to the beaten down 'Bot. "You," I say roughly. I pull him down aggressively by the clavicle and give him as best as a kiss I could. All the while, I was shooting all the energy I had into his spark, hoping it would do some good. By doing so, I could feel him shifting into a bigger size and getting stronger. The energy wasn't coming from me, at least, it didn't feel that way. Usually, I would feel a tug at my spark, but now, it felt like it was coming from Bonnie. I release my grip and gaze into his optics. "Win this thing," I whisper to him. He stands up, taller than before, with new weapons and what looked like afterburners on his shoulders.

"Let's roll," he says, blasting off after The Fallen.

"That is one piece of steaming hot metal," I mutter to myself, liking what I see.

"Whoa," I hear Mikaela gasp behind me.

"I know," I whisper.

"Your boyfriend is a beefcake."

"Hands off, missy," I joke. The cheeriness in the place suddenly drops as I spot Megatron flying by… heading straight for me. He was too quick for anyone else to respond and he brought me over towards the fight that ensued.

"Miss me?" he chuckled evilly.

"What do you want from me? Why the Pit am I so important to you?" I kicked and screamed.

"You're stupid Prime had just blown up the Harvester." He hovers around the fight, looking for a safe place to hide me.

"So why do you need me?"

"Plan B." He stepped down and handed me to Starscream as he joined in the fight. _I don't think I want to know what Plan B is._ I was watching the fight as Starscream was nervously thinking of what to do. Optimus was getting a good lead, he had broken off Megatron's blaster and shot him in the face, achieving the goal of ripping half his face plates off. He had shot Megatron into a few ruins. I took this moment of slight disorientation to slip from Starscream's grip. I hid into a crack in the wall which concealed me perfectly.

The sounds of massive footsteps vibrated my little nook, letting loose debris fall onto my face. I could tell Starscream was panicking from the punishment he would receive later for both losing and failing to find me. _How blind is he?_

"Where is the girl?" Megatron barked at his pathetic servant.

"M-master. She has escaped," he hissed shakily. I heard a clunk and assumed that Megatron had inflicted physical repercussion.

"We will get you yet, traitor," he yelled as they stomped about. I was whimpering in my little cubby hole, covering my mouth so they would not find me. I heard Optimus give one of his witty phrases as he finally killed the last of the original Primes.

"Not to call you a coward, Master, but sometimes cowards do survive." That wasn't the best speech Starscream has ever given, but it was enough for Megatron to retreat.

"Wherever you are, femme, I will find you. And you will be mine," he grumbled bitterly as he took off. The pounding in my chest had finally slowed down and I relaxed the tension in my muscles. I slid out of my spot and leaned against the wall, gasping for air.

"Nova. Nova!" I heard Optimus calling.

"H-here! I'm over here!" I return, staggering to get myself back up. He takes one look at me and darts towards my direction, scooping me up gently. I lean against his fingers as I look him in the optics. "I love your new look," I joke weakly. Any energy I had before, had drained.

"I don't think I could use it for long, though. Too heavy," he chuckled as he walked us back to the pillars. Gradually, he dropped every piece of excess metal he had.

"Aw, I worked hard to give you those," I laughed a little. "Mind you, that was some pretty sexy armor you had goin' on there." He laughed softly along as he put me down. I ran over to hug Mizuki, who looked so beaten up. "Where did you go?"

"I was with Ironhide." That's all she needed to say for me to understand. I need to give Ironhide a strict talk about the limits of humans later. I see Simmons and Leo walking up, dirt and sweat covering every inch of them. I didn't care about hygiene anymore, considering the fact that I was covered up in dirt and caked in with sand. I practically flung into both their grips in a group hug.

"You lived Curly-top. What did I tell you?" I say sarcastically as I sniff up tears of joy. I left Sam and Mikaela alone, seeing that they're having some private time. Optimus shifts down to his alt. form and pops a holoforms right next to me, grabbing my waist and dipping me slightly into a kiss. This easily takes me by surprise. I guess he missed me as much as I missed him. My optics gazed into his, taking in his features that I had missed so much. Then, in a completely new attitude, I poke an angry finger into his chest. "Don't you dare die on me again."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said with a smile. I was let go of his warm embrace but he didn't drop his gaze. "Nova, there's something I need to ask."

"No, I haven't asked Lennox for a bigger room yet," I guessed an answer. He chuckled softly as he brushed back a few strands of hair.

"That wasn't my question," he takes something out of his pocket and knelt in front of me.

"Oh my goodness! He's gonna pop the question, Ron!" I heard Judy screech, poking at her husband.

"Mom!" Sam scolded. He shook his head in disappointment.

"Um… Anyway," Optimus shifted the attention back to him. "Nova." He took out a simple glowing silver ring. It was intertwined with an electric blue light which made it look like lightening surrounding the twisted metal. With a deep breath, he sighed, "Will you marry me?" And with that, the ring was smoothly slipped onto my finger.

A cold energy glowed from the ring and traveled up my veins to my spark. I felt something surround it. He saw my confusion. "Ratchet helped me forge it. When the ring is on your finger, it places a ring around your spark. Vice versa." I stayed silent for a while, staring at my finger. "Um, Nova? I kind of need an answer," he coughed, trying to snap me back to reality.

I started shaking my head slightly and looked into his optics with newfound shock. "No," I whispered.

"What?" he asked concerned, stepping up and inspecting me further, in case something might've been wrong with me. "What do you mean?"

"I can't do this right now," I take a step back.

"But-but," I put a finger on his lips. I start leaning on him as I whimper out my next words.

"My water broke."

* * *

><p><strong><em>Yes, she did accept the ring, so yes, they will get married!<em>**_ Just so you guys don't get confused. I'm sorry that Sunny and Sides weren't really in this story but they will be in the next one. Please review so I can get better in my writing and so you can enjoy more. Don't get worried if you're reviews sound negative, as long as it's not a flame, I don't mind._

**_~Don't be a stranger ;D_**


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